Taming our secrets
by Monkey Trap
Summary: Nate is overwhelmingly embarrassed that the other guys at a party found out he's a virign, so when he gets help from a newly made acquaintance he discovers he gets more than he bargained for. Can he keep his nose out of Brendan's business or will he find himself learning things he should never know? M/M Topiaryshipping
1. I can change that

**A N:** Well here's the start of my first story. My only disclaimers are I obviously don't own Pokemon, If I did why on earth would I be writing a Fan fiction? Think about it. And then this is pretty gay, as in lots of homosexual stuff. This first chapter is pretty as 'M' Rated as 'M' ratings can get.  
FF doesn't have enough of these unusual pairings so just so everyone know's: BrendanXNate  
Boom! Have fun reading it.  
_(I updated this chapter because I didn't like how somethings were rushed)_

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Nate's brown eye scanned the room for any sort of familiar comfort to engage himself in. He was terrible at parties, especially when they were in another region with people he knew so little about. His best friends Hugh and Rosa knew Hilda and Hilbert, who knew some kids from Sinnoh, who knew kids from other regions, who decided to have a huge get together in Hoenn at some girls house who's name currently escaped him. He sighed in defeat, because traveling was expensive and everyone agreed on wanting to get to know each other it was decided that they'd stay in Hoenn for a month.

The original plan for him was to rely on sticking with Hugh the for this first night so he wouldn't have to suffer the awkwardness of standing and meeting people alone, but Rosa screwed that up by snatching Hugh away from him. He secretly cursed under his breath when she waltzed away with his best friend leaving him stranded. Now he had no other choice but to move onto plan B, find Hilda, Hilbert, or Bianca.

To be honest, he didn't know Hilda or Hilbert to well so the idea of just jumping into whatever activity they were involved in seemed really nerve-racking, but he didn't know what else to do. Bianca was friendly and he knew her a little bit better than the twins but she was busy on her Xtransciever updating Cheren sense he couldn't make it. So he had to do what he did best, make a fool of himself and take a social risk.

Nate took in a deep breath when he found Hilda on a couch and sat down between her and a guy with a white hat. The guy glanced at the brunette for brief a moment to acknowledge his presence and then went back to talking to two older guys. He couldn't help but admire how they looked like they knew what they were talking about when the topic switched from Pokemon to girls.

"I'd say when I was traveling around in Kanto I got laid in maybe half of the towns." The tallest with coppery blonde hair boasted as he leaned against the wall. "but of course that's nothing compared to now as a gym leader." He narrowed his eyes at Nate who shuffled uncomfortably under his stare. "Who are you?"

"I'm uh-"

"This is Nate, he's from my region." Hilda spoke up, Nate didn't even know she was listening. "He's kind of a dork."

He blushed a little "I can speak for myself." The three other boys stared at him blankly waiting for some kind of continuation. "What?"

"So do it. Speak for yourself. What do you do over in Unova?" The dark haired one grinned in such a way Nate couldn't tell if he was teasing him or sincerely giving him an opportunity to talk.

"I uh, went around and collected gym badges."

"We've all done that." The white hatted guy grumbled and started to drink something that looked like a mixture of punch and different kinds of alcohol.

"Did you do anything a little more interesting? What are the girls like over there? Are they all bitchy like her?" The blonde gestured to Hilda who gave him a violent glare.

Nate started to sweat he really wanted to impress these guys, they all seemed more mature than him and he didn't want to come across as Hilda said, a dork. "The girls…"

"Pfft! How would Nate know? He's the biggest virgin I've ever met." Hilda snorted.

The brunette felt his blood go cold, "HILDA!" He screeched while pulling on his hair.

The blonde guy laughed loud and mockingly while smacking his dark haired friends shoulder. It really wasn't that funny but the kid just had to rub it in. Some people from the other side of the room even looked over to see what he was laughing about. Nate tried to sink into the couch. The guy next to him smirked and raised an eyebrow while taking another sip from his drink.

"Oh Shut up Green, nobody cares about sex THAT much." Hilda rolled her eyes at him while twirling her hair. Just then Hilbert came over and whispered something into his sisters ear. She got up and left with a pissed off look.

Green sat on Nates now vacant side, the cushion bounced from impact and when he opened his mouth to speak it reeked of alcohol "Have you even kissed a girl before?"

Nate really didn't want to be left alone with these guys. "Bathroom! I need to go!" He shot up from his seat desperate to get away from them. Maybe Bianca was done talking with Cheren now.

"Way to go Green you scared him away." Nate could hear one of the other guys tease their friend.

It was maybe an hour later, Nate had reunited with Hugh and had made acquaintances with two girls named Lyra and May. He was finally starting to feel a little more comfortable around these people and even started to forget about the embarrassing interrogation that went on earlier. Lyra was cute, he kind of liked her, she was friendly and considerate to his unusualness. May seemed a little more hard core and was more focused if people were treating her home with considerate care rather than engaging in the conversations.

When they laughed it sounded like genuine interest, of course though Hugh was showing off by telling embarrassing stories about Nate, but he didn't exactly mind it because Hugh made him come across as a funny socially awkward shit. Everything was going great till Hugh asked Nate to get him a drink. Judging by the look on his face Nate knew that it was more of an order than a friendly favor, he wanted to get rid of him.

Reluctantly Nate snatched Hugh's empty cup almost crushing it, striding angrily to the punch bowl. This was the exact reason he could never get laid! Because Hugh was always cock blocking him, it was partially his own fault though for not having the balls to stand up to him. He thought for a moment and lit up when an idea popped into his head, he scanned the table looking for something gross to put in Hugh's drink and smiled when he saw the salt shaker. As he reached to grab it another hand snatched it before him.

"Oh sorry did you need this?" The comment came off as a snide snicker as the White hatted guy offered it back to Nate.

"No its ok, I'll find something else to ruin this drink with." The Unova boy murmured under his breath, he didn't trust him, even though it was mostly Green that made fun of him earlier he wasn't going to risk becoming a victim again.

The white hatted boy's eye brow peaked with interest. "Ruining a drink with salt? Cute but there's better stuff in the Kitchen." Before Nate knew it the guy had grabbed his elbow and had dragged him into a large Kitchen with tons of cabinets. He sauntered over to the spice rack by the fridge and started looking through them. "May's mom keeps this really gross spice over here. I don't know what it is but it's really bitter and dissolves in liquids." He spun the revolving rack till he went 'aha' and grabbed a green container. "Here, just gently tap the sides so you don't waste too much. It's really strong."

"Thanks but no thanks." Nate rejected it. "I don't exactly trust you." He turned to leave the kitchen when suddenly the taller boy jerked him back by the elbow and trapped him against the counter.

"I'm not friends with Green. He's an asshole. I mean, I am too, but I'm a different kind of asshole. You don't have to hate me. Or Red, just ignore Green." His face looked serious, his red tinted eyes burned into Nate's with an edgy lust.

Nate didn't notice it before, mainly because he was busy in trying to disappear, but the white hat boy smelled really good, almost intoxicating. "S-sorry, but I'm just embarrassed, I'd rather not socialize with any of you."

He gave a venomous smile and refused to let Nate out of his trap when he pushed against his forearm. "Why? Because you're a virgin? If it bothers you that bad I can change that for you."

The brunette felt his face burn, "Y-you could? How?"

"Don't worry about how. My names Brendan by the way." He pushed his hands off the counter, it didn't go unnoticed to Nate when he rested one of them on his waist, pulling the shorter teen with him towards the back door.

Nate felt his gut start to twist, he had an odd feeling about this. "Where are we going? I still need to get Hugh his drink."

Brendan rolled his eyes as he took Nate outside. "We're going to my house. And stop worrying about your friend. You don't need to be such a floozy, Hugh can get his own drink."

His stomach made a jolt. How was Brendan planning on getting him laid if he's taking him away from the party? He prayed that maybe there would be a horny girl at Brendan's house but he knew deep down that there wouldn't.

The air outside was thick with the smell of the after rain, all the tree's stood tall towering over the small valley that only a few houses resided in. The sky was a dark lavender and echoed only little remains of rain clouds, the moon was a smiling crescent.

When they got into the house Nate marveled at how it looked like a lodge, but so did the other house with the party. He guessed that he noticed it more here mostly because he wasn't busy trying to hide from social situations. "Where are your parents?" He questioned Brendan.

"My mom is out visiting my dad who's a gym leader. She does that every weekend." He grumbled as he opened the door to his room, it was very neat and tidy with small little hints of girlish themes. Nate grimaced at it, he thought that was a little weird but knew it was best not to comment on it.

That's when it confirmed it for Nate. He was in Brendan's bedroom. HIS BEDROOM. Alone with Brendan. "I- I'm sleeping with you..." It came out more as a statement than anything else.

"Oh wow, you're not as dumb as I thought. What did you think was going to happen after I said I was taking you to my house?" He dryly mocked him and sat on a very fluffy and neatly tucked bed.

"I don't know. Is it going to work?"

Brendan chuckled with strange delight "Virginity is virginity, you said you didn't want to be a virgin anymore, I'm just here to help. It seemed like it didn't matter who it was with so I thought you might be ok with it being with a guy." He pulled Nate roughly onto the bed and held him down by his wrists. "I assure you though, this is isn't because I like you in anyway. I felt pity, I'm just here to do you a favor. Understand?" Nate gave a nod. "Good."

The brunette yelp when he felt Brendan start to grind his genitals against him, he could feel himself tighten up getting semi-hard. Was he even supposed to reacting that way? He subconsciously started to spread his legs apart and grinding back with the ruby eyed teen. Nate felt panic run through his veins as the more experienced teenager swept his hands over his cloaked chest and pinched him in places he had never imagined being pinched in before.

A half ass smirk grew on Brendan's face as he got off Nate and unzipped his pants to pull out his member, which was rock hard.

Nate cocked an eye at it and blushed. Brendan wasn't HUGE or anything but his size was definitely above average, and larger than Nate's.

"Suck it." He ordered the younger teen and pulled him towards it.

"How's pleasuring you going to take away my virginity?" He narrowed his eyes at Brendan who took it as a challenge.

"Do you want to be a virgin forever? Because I can arrange that to happen instead." He cracked his Knuckles and grabbed Nate by the hair pulling him down.

"OW! No Sorry! I'm just. I'm nervous, I've never touched anyone's but my own." He quickly looked away from Brendan's glare and stared at his penis. Shaking, he grabbed the base of the shaft and licked the head with his tongue before putting it in his mouth. He tried to go down on it but instantly threw himself off of it coughing. "I DON'T WANT TO DO IT! IT FELT LIKE IT WAS STRETCHING MY THROAT!"

"That's fine, you'll get used to it. Try again." There was a hint of snootiness in his coos of comfort as he pulled Nate's head back down to his un-hardening organ. He ran his fingers through the messy brown hair as Nate poorly licked and sucked at his cock. The white hatted boy propped his head up on his elbow and drew his eyes over Nate's awkward position. The inexperienced teen had his rump in the air while his head was down by Brendan's groin bobbing up and down slowly. Man, he was really bad at oral, he even started to gag a little when Brendan gave a small thrust into his mouth.

Nate cringed as his own saliva began to coat his face, he glanced quickly at Brendan to see if he was at least enjoying it but was irritated to find that he looked indifferent. After what seemed like hours of sucking Brendan's dick Nate was relieved to have the other teen pull his head off of him.

"Ok I'm done with that, you really suck, and in the bad kind of way." Brendan sat up and reached over to a drawer by his bed to pull out a clear bottle. "Come here." He gestured Nate and grabbed his elbow when he got close enough to pull him onto his lap.

Nate quickly grabbed his shorts when Brendan tried to pull them down. "NO! I DON'T WANT YOU TO LOOK AT IT!" Even he was surprised by his sudden outburst of insecurity, but after sucking Brendan's dick for a good 10 minutes he felt inferior to the other teen.

"What the hell am I going to do? Laugh at it? Don't worry, I wouldn't even care if it fell off." With that said Brendan slid off Nate's shorts and wet suite legging things. "Ugh why do you even have these?" He groaned as he sat Nate down.

The brunette tensed up when he saw Brendan look down and give a quick giggle. "YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T LAUGH!" He wailed and threw his arms around Brendan's shoulders so his back would block the other teens view.

"Sorry, I just thought it was funny that you got self-conscious over that." He paused for a moment and squirted the liquid on his hand. "It's going to feel cold for a bit."

"What's going to feel- Oh MY lord!" He dug his nails into Brendan's shirt in shock from his butt being slathered in the cool liquid. It was everywhere, on his cheeks, in his crack and Brendan was only making it weirder by playing around with his bum, giving it little squeezes here and there. Nate frowned because he knew enough that if it was his ass being lubed, it was probably going to be his ass being penetrated, yet he refused to say anything. In a way, he was kind of more ok with it being this way than the other way around.

Just when he finally started to relax he felt something go into his asshole. "Is that your dick!? It barley even hurts!"

"No you dumbass! It's my pinky! I'm not just going to shove my dick into you without stretching it a bit! That will murder you." Brendan switched to his index finger, sliding it in all the way and then out half way. "OW! Relax! It will hurt more if you tense up." He put his free hand on the back of Nate's head to stroke his hair so he would stop tensing.

After a few minutes Brendan put in another finger and mimicked penetration, Nate tried hard to think about something else, anything else. His eyes wandered around the unfamiliar room searching for a point of focus, all he could see was the desk that was on the other side of Brendan's bed. The laptop on it was shut and had a Mudkip sticker. Next to the laptop was an empty water bottle, a lamp, and then a little stand with an assortment of different photo's. He eyed them for a while and confirmed that the only one he could see well enough must have been a picture of him and his dad, though they looked nothing a like they were both hugging in front of the Hoenn Pokemon league. Nate remembered Brendan saying his dad was a Gym leader, maybe they were at the League for some Leadership thing. Something about the way they embraced each other though made him feel uneasy.

"OUCH!" Nate cried out as he felt the tip of Brendan's dick push him open. "THAT HURT!" He felt his eye lids grow hot and he knew he was about to cry. The other teen must of sensed it coming and pulled him close to his body before gently prodding at his entrance again.

"It's going to hurt a little bit at the beginning but it'll feel good once I get going, I promise. "

He trusted him enough to let him keep going, although he refused to make a noise or let Brendan know in any way that he was crying he was fully aware that the other teen knew based on the way he thrust into him. His arms tightened around his lovers neck when he stopped the thrusts and put him on his back.

"You're going to have to let go of my neck if you want me to continue."  
Nate shook his head. "I don't want you to see my face."

Brendan sighed in irritancy. "If you don't let go, I'll make this very painful for you."

The brunette dropped to his back and covered his face, allowing the other teen to take control.

Rough hands grabbed at his exposed thighs pulling them apart as the gentle thrusts gradually became harder. Nate bit his lower lip as small moans escaped his throat, he was having a real hard time deciding if he was feeling pleasure or not. In no time the thrusts became faster, and Brendan's dick hit something inside of him sending a pulse throughout his body. Nate let out a loud gasp as he threw his hands onto the bed, he caught a grin of satisfaction from Brendan who reached down to grab Nates own member. The Unova boy arched his back so that the other teens cock would hit that spot again.

"Sorry, I have a lot of Stamina." Brendan gave a crooked smile obviously enjoying Nate's desperate attempts not to moan. He pounded harder into Nate's ass, leaning forward to look the younger boy in the eye's. It seemed like the more embarrassed Nate looked the more he felt like he was achieving something.

Nate curled under the pressure of having his ass penetrated while being jacked off at the same time. He felt his face start to blush when Brendan leaned over him and looked at him with his demanding ruby eyes. 'Kiss him.' Nate thought and leaned up to press his lips against the other boys but felt his heart freeze when Brendan instantly tore his face away from his. "Wait! Brendan stop-" He cut himself short when he felt himself shoot all over his shirt.

Brendan stopped his thrust's for a moment to take in what just happened, shrugged, and then continued thrusting. "Sorry, but I'm not stopping till I'm done." His face looked severally pissed off and when the younger teen opened his mouth to say something he hooked his finger into it and pulled Nate's face down to the bed.

The brunette felt a twist in his chest, was Brendan mad because he tried to kiss him? It just seemed like the right thing to do in the moment. Maybe it was a little too weird, he shut his eye's tight, why did he have to be so awkward, of course Brendan didn't want to kiss him, he said he was just helping him out.

Finally the thrusts stopped as Nate felt Brendan shoot into him. Was that safe? He decided giving on the looks of the other teens mood, it's best not to ask. The hatted teen pulled out of him and laid against a pillow, eyebrows pressed together. Nate felt like crap, his legs felt like they have been separated his whole life, his back was sore, and his butt, he didn't even want to consider what It looked like at the moment.

After a long moment of silence Nate looked around for his shorts and spotted them on the side of the bed, he stood up to grab them and then instantly sat back down. It hurt like a mother fucker. If he had to go back to the party like this then he was going to have a really tough time getting around.

Brendan glanced over his shoulder as the brunette slid his shorts back on. "Just sleep in here tonight. Can you go into that drawer and hand me my book though?" He pointed at a drawer in the desk that Nate was looking at earlier.

Relieved to not having to leave Nate gladly scooted himself over to the desk and opened the drawer, his eye's traveled upward to the photo's again, he didn't bother at looking any other than the one with Brendan and his dad. His father looks surprisingly young for a father, but he guessed maybe Brendan's mom was a teen when he was born.

The book's cover was so smooth that he guessed it was new, he handed it to Brendan who was propped up against the back board. Nate couldn't help but stare at him, he looked so different without his hat on, his hair was so dark and shiny. He laid his head down and stared off into space.

Nate decided Brendan must be a student of some sort because on the other side of the room he had a large bookshelf full of Traveling books, encyclopedias of different kinds of Rocks and geology, and Pokemon guides. He only recognized a few of the books as romance novels but they seemed kind of out of place, it looked like they were just there so if a stranger came to his room they wouldn't suspect he was actually a boring fuck.

"So, you're gay?" Nate asked.

Brendan made a soft chuckle "No."

"What the hell!? But you just had sex with a guy!" Nate shot up in surprise.

"So? Sex is sex to me. If I actually had sex with just people I liked I wouldn't of had sex with you." He then murmured under his breath "I don't even know you."

Nate pondered this for a moment. "Yeah! You just had sex with someone you don't even know! What if I lied about being a virgin and I'm jam packed with STD's!?"

Brendan let out a hoot of laughter. "Oh trust me, based on your performance you are definitely a virgin. Were a virgin." He corrected himself.

The Unova boy rolled over onto his back and crossed his arms. "You knew what you were doing." He admitted. "Have you done it with a guy before?"

The ruby eyed boy knitted his brows and glared at Nate with a hurt expression. He took two of his fingers and slid them into the brunette's mouth and pressed down hard onto his tongue. "That's not up for discussion, not another word from you."

Nate felt a sting in his heart as he turned away from Brendan. He wondered what Hugh would say if he knew that his best friend just got butt fucked by some rock loving nerd. Suddenly the realization hit him, there was no way in hell he was going to tell anyone that he got fucked by a boy. He couldn't just say that he wasn't a virgin anymore, that would be too obvious, and if he just acted like he lost his virginity a long time ago and just didn't say anything they would ask why he kept quiet. He groaned, he was back where he started, plus with some of his dignity down the drain. To top things off, he couldn't stop staring at that creepy picture of Brendan and his dad. Who's dad has silver hair anyways?

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To be continued...

(Also reviews would be much appreciated)


	2. Don't tell anyone

Nate woke up savoring a sweet and spicy smell, something about it made him feel really safe and comfortable, but when he opened his eyes he felt anything but that. Brendan was propped up against the back board of his bed reading, it was as if he never even moved from last night but Nate knew he had to of moved because he was in a dark loose T shirt and he looked well rested.

"What time is it!?" He threw himself away from the mattress and scurried to find his Xtransciever, It must have fallen out of his pocket when his shorts were thrown onto the floor. "Me, Hugh and Rosa are supposed to stay in Oldale town during this gathering thing! Hugh will FREAK if he can't find me before they leave."

"Oh. Is that why your Xtransciever has been going off all night?" There was a lack of interest in his voice.

"ALL NIGHT!? Where is it? I need it!" Nate snatched it away from Brendan's hand as soon as he handed it over to him. "Why did you turn it off!?"

"It was annoying, it wouldn't stop ringing."

"Then you should of woken me up! Or at least have answered it!" He twisted his face when he saw all the missed calls from Hugh and Rosa. With a couple swift clicks he dialed Hugh's number.

Brendan smirked at the messy haired boy, "Would have you really been ok with that? A strange guy answering your friends calls late at night? Doesn't that sound suspicious? What would they say if they knew what I did to you?"

Nate glared at him, he had a good point, if Brendan would of answered the phone Hugh would have jumped to conclusions, maybe not the right ones, he'd probably think he got mugged or something.

"_Hello!? Nate! Where are you!? We were trying to find you all night! I'm so unbelievably pissed off at you right now . ._"

"I'm…." He trailed off when Brendan caught his attention he slowly mouthed the words 'Don't tell him anything'. "I wasn't feeling well, I stayed at some guy's house."

"_Well tell me next time! Me and Rosa were worried sick!_" Hugh was silent for a moment, judging by some mumbles Nate guessed he was probably talking to Rosa. "_Are you still in Littleroot_?"

"Uh yeah,"

"_Well, just go back to May's, we'll be heading back there later this morning anyways."_

When the call ended the brunette felt firm fingers rake through his bangs and force his head to turn. Thickly lashed eye's held a demanding look as Brendan's dark eyebrows pressed together. "Just so we are on the same page, don't tell anyone about what we did last night. It was a silent favor, if I hear about it from someone else, I will personally shred you into pieces."

Nate dumbly gaped at the elder's threat, he wasn't planning on telling anyone anyways, he figured out he couldn't last night. To only him and the other teen's knowledge he was no longer a virgin, to everyone else he was still just Nate.

Brendan released his grip on Nate's head and slid out of the bed, his strides to his neatly folded clothes were heavy and lonesome. Something about him seemed off to the other boy who watched him with a curious gaze. He glanced back at Nate for a moment and then grunted in discomfort.

"You don't have to wait for me to tell you what to do you know."

The younger said nothing, only adverted his eyes away from the black haired teen when he started to pull up his pants. He was drawn back to the picture stand once again, this time he ignored the picture of Brendan and his dad. The other pictures assorted from people with Pokemon, to Pokemon with Pokemon, and people with people, they all had a more innocent feel than the other picture.

"What kind of Pokemon do you have?" Nate blurted out when he realized he was looking at the picture again. Brendan had his shirt on halfway when the brunette refocused his eyes onto him. Although Nate and Brendan had very similar widths, he found himself jealous over the other teen's lean, filled out, muscular look.

"Good ones." He gave Nate a mischievous grin as if he were looking down on him. "I'm sure you'd be easily impressed by them."

It took about an hour for Brendan just to take a shower, and do his hair, even though he was just going to slick it back and hide it under his hat anyways. By the time they actually left Brendan's house Nate was convinced that everyone would be at May's already, but to his surprise the lodge like building seemed rather empty.

"Where were you last night!?" An irritated growl escaped May's gritted teeth. She seemed agitated and ready to throw a punch.

Brendan went straight for her fridge and shrugged his shoulders. "I went home."

"Brendan! You promised you would stay the whole night!" She snatched a glass of oran juice away from him to get his attention. "You have to stop these disappearing acts!"

The red eyed boy ignored her as he drank straight from the oran juice carton, his eye's as well as May's drifted over to Nate's awkward figure in the kitchen door way.

"Oh my Arc- Brendan did you-"

"No!" Brendan was quick to cut her off "Don't even think about that, he just felt sick."

"Bleh you got my hopes up." She spun on her heals and leaned against the wall, her blue eyes skimmed over Nate judging every inch of him. She turned around quickly and took the oran juice carton away from Brendan before redirecting her attention to Nate, "Use a glass moron."

The brunette boy shifted in discomfort, he felt like Brendan and May were having a secret conversation without actually saying anything at all.

"You're not even his type anyways." She shrugged at Nate and walked over to the fridge to put the juice carton back.

"May, shut up or I'll cut off that big Pelipper mouth of yours." Brendan slammed a cupboard closed after obediently following May's orders and getting a glass. He stopped in his tracks when he realized that the glass of oran juice May took from him earlier was now by the sink, still full. A large sigh rumbled out of his throat as he switched the glasses.

There was an odd stinging feeling in Nate's chest when they started bickering, it was as if he wasn't even there. Somehow they seemed perfectly comfortable but for him, he was just struggling to open his mouth to get a word in. "Where is everyone?"

"Hopefully dead." Brendan bitterly mumbled to himself and earned a scowl from May.

"They should be here soon. Everyone left around one last night- er this morning. No way in hell I'm letting anyone stay here overnight. Too many trainers, not to mention some arrogant ones." She moaned and hung herself over the counter letting her long, shiny, brown hair coil on the tiles.

"I think I can name an arrogant trainer in here…"

"Excuse me?" Brendan lifted his head and pierced the other boy with his eyes.

Nate flushed hard, he didn't mean to say that out loud. "Nothing. Sorry."

The room was uncomfortable and humid, even with all the windows up and the occasional gentle breeze Nate still found himself pressing his naked arms against the tiled counter to relieve the heat. Was Hoenn naturally this hot? He mentally smacked himself when he remembered the whole region was a group of large Islands. Of course it was always hot.

"Welp, not that this isn't fun or anything, but I'm going to go take a quick shower before people arrive. See ya." May threw herself away from the counter and skipped away.

The awkwardness between Brendan and Nate was thick enough to cut with a knife, the two avoided eye contact with each other, Nate spent his focus on looking at the magnets on May's fridge while Brendan blew bubbles in his oran juice. The tension finally collapsed when Nate accidentally dropped a Pikachu magnet.

"Don't be breaking stuff!" The ruby eyed teen hissed at Nate.

"I'm not! It's fine! see!?" He held it up in front of Brendan's face. "You know, you're a lot different than last night. You're kind of grumpy."

"I'm a grumpy person, that's who I am. Besides I was drinking."

Nate snorted "Please don't tell me you're one of those people who blame their actions on getting drunk."

"I do not get drunk. I'm not a light weight, not even a little." He rinsed his cup and threw his nose into the air. "I just get a little whimsical when I drink."

"Well, I personally wouldn't call it whimsical"  
"To be honest you didn't exactly turn out the way I expected either." Brendan hissed under his breath

"What do you mean?"

"You were quieter and more timid, you didn't speak your mind nearly as much as you are right now." He snickered as he turned his back to Nate. "I very muchly prefer you with your mouth shut than open. Especially sense you're terrible at the only thing that it should be good for."

"Shut up!" Nate growled at him.

A smile grew on Brendan's face when he realized he was getting to him. "I liked it when I thought you were just shy and stupid virgin."

The Unova boy threw his head back in embarrassment, "I'm not shy and stupid. And I'm not a virgin anymore!" He felt his face burn.

"Yes. I just implied that."

So was that a compliment?

The front door of May's house swung open, the others were here now, relief flooded over both of them, they knew they could finally get away from each other. But when Nate turned to leave he felt a painful grip on his shoulder, Brendan pulled him back and trapped him between his arms again, an exact repeat of last night.

When the other teen noticed this he backed away but kept a firm hold on Nate's arm. "Remember, don't tell anyone!"

The plan was that everyone was going to have Pokemon battles for the rest of the day, May took everyone to a spot deep in the pine forests that had a perfect set up for battles. However the day didn't exactly end up in battles, instead it was Green and Red planning out a tournament schedule for everyone. When anyone tried to just go ahead and battle Green and Red would shoo them away from the clearing and insisted they were figuring things out.

Nate was sprawled across a boulder, enjoying the sunlight when he felt something hit his gut hard. "Ow! Rosa what the hell!?" He looked around and noticed she was alone, Hugh was on the other side of the clearing bragging to the Sinnoh kids about how he defeated the Unova gym leaders.

She gave him a long hard look with her water blue eyes before saying anything. "Where were you last night?"

"I didn't feel good."

"I didn't ask how you felt!" She grabbed his arm and twisted it.

"Ow! Rosa stop! I was at a guy's house!"

"what guy?" She let go of his arm and practically stared into his soul, of course she didn't really do that, she was only human, but she and Nate had always had this unspeakable bond. She was very aware of his feelings and in tune with the way he acted, although they both were closer to Hugh than each other, they still shared that uniqueness.

"Um, a guy named Brendan," He lifted his head and tried to look for the hatted teen in secret, he wasn't there.

"who is Brendan?"

A new voice cut through to him, "Brendan? The guy with the white hat?" A guy with golden eyes took it upon himself to rudely sit himself next to Nate, he was munching on some sort of candy. "I heard things about him!"

Another figure sat next to the golden eyed boy, the way she quietly sat next to him was almost ghost like it was so smooth. "We've heard three rumors about him." It was Lyra, she crossed her legs and looked at Nate and Rosa with snake like eyes.

"Do you mind? We were busy here, go bother someone else please." Rosa snarled.

The duo ignored her. "I'm Ethan by the way, this is Lyra." He reached his hand out to Nate.

"Um, Nate and Rosa, I've uh. Met Lyra."

She squinted at the boy in confusion. "Oh right! Nate, sorry I'm terrible with faces."

Ethan brightly flashed his teeth and then cupped his mouth. "When we were looking for May's house yesterday we needed to get directions from some locals in Oldale Town, there were two of them. When we mentioned May's name they seemed to be at a lost on who she was. So we mentioned Brendan's name sense we knew he was her neighbor. Surprisingly they knew where he lived, mainly because the next town over was home to his father's gym. But just before we left they murmured something under their breath." Ethan's voice started to hush down. "We asked them what was their problem because at first we assumed they said something about us. They just looked at each other and said Brendan was a weird kid. They then told us the three rumors."

Lyra looked at Ethan adoringly before continuing his story, "The first rumor was that he sneaks around Mt. Pyre at night. Only Arceus knows what he does up there. "

The two Unova teens glanced at each other in confusion, where the hell was Mt. Pyre?

"The second rumor was that he was," Ethan lowered his voice even more than before, "Gay."

Nate felt his stomach flutter, he couldn't look Ethan or Lyra in the eye after he had said that. Especially after the black haired boy made it sound like such a crime. He prayed to the heavens that Rosa wouldn't pick up on his weird reaction, to his relief she seemed to be tuning everything out, even him. When he reunited his attention with the other two teens he felt his blood run, Ethan pressed his eyebrows at him in suspicion.

"Then the third rumor was about who he was wi-"

"Am I interrupting anything?" May pushed Ethan and Lyra apart, she gave them both one of the deadliest look's Nate had ever seen in his life. "Don't spread rumors about my best friend. Or I WILL have to ask you guys to leave."

Everyone in the clearing heard May, even though she didn't yell, something about the way she said it though was so stern that it caught attention quickly. It was clear she wasn't ok with 'innocent gossip'.

"Sor-sorry." Ethan stared Blankly at her, embarrassed the he was called out.

Evening was drawing in and everyone was getting moody about not being able to do anything, there was a relieved sigh throughout the group when May convinced Green and Red that they should go back to her place to get dinner.

Just when Nate thought he was finally alone he felt a warmth by his side. Everyone got up to retreat back to May's house but Hugh held back with Nate and leaned in to whisper into his ear. "What was all that about?"

"Well I guess we are all thankful to finally leave this clearing, we've been here since lunch."

The blue haired teen scoffed. "No, I mean with Ethan, Lyra, and May."

"Oh, they were talking about Brendan, I guess she didn't like that." He scuffled his feet as they walked along a faint red dirt path.

"Brendan? Oh! The white hatted kid." He seemed rather bothered by this actually.

Nate secretly wondered if they had maybe met earlier but knew they hadn't, he realized the whole afternoon when Brendan WAS around, Nate kept an eye on him. He wasn't sure why, they made it clear to each other that morning that they didn't like each other. He felt his face begin to burn when he considered maybe it was because he was his first.

"Where did that guy go anyways? He was with the group all day till we went into the woods for battles. Seems kind of shady to me."

"Hugh! Don't. May said she would kick out anyone who gossiped about Brendan."

His friend only smiled and took it as a challenge. "Nobody can hear us, we're in the back of the line. Why does he need such special treatment from her anyways?"

"Let just change the subject please, I'm sick of hearing about him." He felt a shiver run down his spine, he knew what Hugh was going to ask. A light touch on his arm confirmed it as he struggled to find a way out of the upcoming conversation.

"How have you been feeling since the acid-"

"I LOST MY TRAINER CARD!" Nate gasped out loud, they were out of the forest now and almost to May's, some people turned around when they heard him yell.

"Double check your pockets, all of them." Hugh demanded, his dull red eye's held the shorter boy in a freeze.

"I did…" The light touch suddenly became a painful grip.

"When was the last time you saw it?"

Nate noticed that they had been left alone, everyone else was already in May's house. "When I saw it last…? Yesterday…" His brown eye's fell to the ground in shame.

The dark blue haired boy let go of Nate's arm, the skin was bruised. "Are you kidding me Nate!? Yesterday!?"

"I'm- I'm sure it will turn up." The brunette struggled to get his words out.

"What if it doesn't though!? What if some creep find's it!? What if your identity is stolen!?" The more he began to jump to conclusions the more angry he seemed to get.

"Nobody is going to steal my identity, I'm sure it will show up at the police station." No matter what Nate said Hugh wasn't listening, instead he started to bounce off possible ways that it could go wrong. "Hugh stop! It's not that big of a deal."

"How can you say it's not that big of a deal!? Nate! You're too careless!"

"I am not!"

"Yes you are! This is why bad things always happen to you!"

"Not all things that happen to me are bad!"

"Are you kidding me!? Name one good thing that has happened to you in the last year!"

"Plenty of good things-"

"Plenty!? Let's ask your Mienshao what it says about that!"

"Hugh stop!"

"You have to be more aware! It was a thing like this that got you're-"

SMACK!

Hugh glared at Nate with a pained raged look, his cheek started to flood with color.

"Please don't bring that up!" The brunette was crouched on the ground, head under arms, "I-I'm sorry I hit you! You can hit me back, Just please don't bring that up. I don't want to talk about it."

There was a long pause between the two trainers, the only sounds that could be heard was the faint sound of a Taillow in the distance. "I can't be around you right now." The blue haired teen turned around and left for May's house, holding onto his freshly punched face.

The Unova boy stayed in that position for what seemed like ages, silent tears ran down his cheeks as he tried to stifle them. His thoughts were all over the place from events of the past to how to avoid Hugh for the rest of the trip. The Taillow's muted chirps finally died but were soon replaced by the sound of crushing grass.

"Go away, I don't want to talk to anyone." Nate was fully aware how childlike he looked right now but he didn't care, he just wanted to sit in his sadness for a bit longer. He clenched his fist when the person didn't leave. "I said go away!"

Brendan stood there and stared Nate with an isolated gaze. "You look pathetic right now."

The brunette opened his mouth to retort but was caught off balance when the ruby eyed teen grabbed his elbow and pulled him up.

"This morning I learned I can't stand you, but I think maybe you should stay with me again tonight. Especially if you're this violent towards your friend." Brendan slid his hand down to Nate's and pulled him along leading him to his house.

Tear's started to stream harder down Nate's face. "I'm, I'm not a violent person. I've never hit Hugh before. I've never hit anyone before! I just couldn't listen to him anymore, he starts these hateful rants and I can't get him to stop, this is the first time I ever hit him, it's also, it's also the first time he stopped."

"Ugh! Stop crying! It's annoying!" Brendan tightened his grip on Nate's hand and started to pull harder to get him to walk faster.

"Get in the shower! Your legs are muddy." The Hoenn teen shoved Nate towards the bathroom door and dropped a towel and some of his own clothes on the bathroom counter. "Give me your clothes when you are done changing, I'm going to wash them."

When Brendan finally left him alone Nate couldn't help but wonder if his forcefull acts of kindness was his way of showing sympathy, but then he was reminded how the whole time in the house Brendan would do nothing but complain about how Nate was crying over the stupidest things. Of course though the other teenager didn't know what he was really crying about, he probably guessed it was because Nate hit his friend.

He barely noticed the burning sensation of the water when he stepped into the shower, he just leaned against the wall and let his thoughts run wild. The last time Hugh freak out about something like this was when Nate had accidentally broken the camera on his Xtransciever, he went on and on about how Nate could be at gun point and no one would know if they called him. It was safe to say that Hugh might have had just as much problems as Nate, but he knew that it was his fault for the problems in the first place.

Numbness took over as the mid teen effortlessly scrubbed the dirt off of his knees. His hand ran over his arm and flinched at the spot where Hugh gripped him. He knew his friend never would want to hurt him, that's why he was so protective over him, but sometimes he was a little too protective and he left marks. Even in social situations his best friend would do what he could to keep any possible threat away from him. It was only recently that he started to lighten up when it came to interacting with others. Nate really didn't care if Hugh was crazy when it came to him meeting other people, but Rosa insisted that it will make him weaker if Hugh kept "babying him". He wasn't weak, they just assumed he was.

The water turned off easily and Nate was finally able to pull out of his thoughts, he wandered over to the towel and clothes looking at it with a lack of enthusiasm. Brendan's clothes were a little long for him but he toughed it out and put them on anyways.

He found Brendan down stairs in his kitchen, making them super. It occurred to him that the other boy was quite the lone wolf, there was free already made food promised at May's house full with people and this guy would rather make his own food and eat with someone he hated.

"Your clothes look stupid on me."

"You don't need my clothes to look stupid."

Nate did his best to ignore that comment. "What are you making?"

"Food."

"What kind of food?"

Brendan turned off the stove and looked Nate straight in the eye before flashing his trainer card to him. "Why did you lie to your friend about losing your trainer card?"

The brunette stared at him in shock, he opened his mouth but words refused to come out.

"I'm doing your laundry." He reminded him. "Or are you surprised that I knew why you two started fight in the first place? I saw the whole thing, I was on my way home. What are you? Some sort of sicko? Because I could tell you obviously didn't get a thrill from being yelled at by your friend. Or did you just want a reason to punch him?"

"I would never want to hit Hugh! I- I was scared to talk to him about something." He gripped the edges of the wall "I made up the lie so he would focus on something else, but then I realized I took it too far and he started to get mad, he ended up trying to talk about the," He inhaled "Something."

There was a long pause before anyone said anything. Nate wondered it Brendan was deciding to just kick him out of his house or not in that moment.

"Pft! Whatever, I really honestly don't care anyways." Brendan handed the card back to Nate, the brown eyed boy could hear his heart beat loudly when the older boys finger lingered and traced the side of his hand for a brief moment.

"that was weird…" Nate tucked the card into his barrowed pants pocket.

"What was?" A mischievous grin was slapped across the taller teens face, he went back to unfinished dish and acted clueless to his own gesture.

* * *

**A/n:** So you maaaay have noticed that I changed the name of this dumb story, noticed someone else had the same name and I felt weird about that. I'm sure someone has this name for their story too, but if I don't see it, it wont bother me. Haha. These are long chapters for me... I feel proud of myself.  
You know what would be cool? That if you the reader reviewed this. Seriously. Would. Be. Great.  
Anything would be nice, even if it's a rant about how much you hate this shipping. I mean probably would be best that you don't exactly do that because you'll just embarrass yourself, but I think you get what I mean though. It's not rocket science.

I want reviews... See ya


	3. Absent

**A/N:** Thankyou for the reviews viewers, some of you know how to flatter a person. C:  
Anyhow, justsoyouknow, I updated the first chapter. And also This chapter took waaay longer to write than it should of. I get distracted easily.  
Enjoy~

* * *

Just like yesterday morning Nate woke up to rays of sunlight in Brendan's room, only this time he was alone in the bed. The sheets were collected on his side, trapping in unwanted heat. Brendan was nowhere to be found, maybe he just couldn't get to sleep and went for a walk, or maybe he had a really bad bathroom emergency. He glanced over to the bathroom door and ruled that option out when saw that it was wide opened.

With a grumble the brunette grabbed his Xtransciever from on top of the desk and checked it for any missed calls, to his disappointment there were none. He set it back down and let his eyes drift to the much hated picture of Brendan and his dad. Brendan looked young in the picture, maybe 14, he had his hat back then too.

Last night was really awkward between them, Nate didn't know if the other teen was ok with him sleeping in the same bed with him again or if he should sleep somewhere else, his house seemed to have plenty of empty rooms. Neither of them said anything about it but they could both tell that they were thinking the same thing, and because it wasn't brought up in the open, they ended up just sleeping with each other's company. It was different from the previous night, it was cold and touch less, there was an invisible barrier between the two, they had regressed in their relationship.

The wooden door creaked open as the ruby eyed boy heavily walked in, he smelled like pine needles and earth, there were little scrapes on his arms and he looked sleep deprived.

"Where were you? What happe-"

"Shower." Brendan lightly pushed through Nate and slid through his bathroom door.

When the door was firmly shut Nate felt a sharp ping in his heart, he didn't have to be so avoidant. The only noise that could be heard was the hissing of the shower, suddenly Nate had this irresistible urge to snoop around the elder's room, he wandered over to the book shelf and skimmed his eyes over the names of the books. 'Rock, Steel, and Ancient Pokemon', 'Native Hoenn Berries', 'Natural Hot Springs Around the World', Nate pulled out a few a noticed that Brendan had written little Memo's in some of the pages. Most of them were his opinions on things, but a few of the side notes held weird initials, SS.

After about 10 minutes of reading 'Origins of Rock Pokemon' another book caught Nate's eye.

"Let's see what this has to say…" He flipped the pages of '101 Places to See in Unova', it was out dated and stiff, the book still had Brycen listed as a Gym leader and didn't have anything about the Marine Tube. Surprisingly this guide seemed untouched by Brendan's little Notes, the brown eyed trainer was about to conclude that he never read it till he got to the back cover of the book. Scribbled over in blue ink were the words 'Ugliest region ever, would never visit.'

Nate tried to roughly shoved the book back in the bookshelf, he thought Unova was beautiful, Brendan could just go fall off a cliff for all he cared. The book seemed to have a hard time going back into the bookshelf. Something was wedged between the back of the books and the wall, he reached his slender hand behind them and pulled out a brown journal, it was layered in untidy scribbles and the edges of the cover were flaking into separate pieces of paper. In the top left corner there were small written words, "Brendan was here". When he opened the journal he could tell that it had been water damaged, the crispy pages were filled top to bottom in thick black ink, some of it was too blurry to read, other parts bleed into each other. The handwriting was vastly different that Brendan's, so it was safe to assume these weren't his words.

Not even before the Unova boy could read the first line he felt a hand rest on his hip and saw another come in front of him to gently lift the journal out of his grip.

"That's not for your eyes." Brendan tucked the journal under his armpit and took a good look at his bookshelf, his hand didn't leave its spot from the hip, instead it dug into the shorts and pressed against the younger skin.

Nate felt himself grow hot and confused under the other boys touch, why was he even touching him? They couldn't stand each other. Small circles were being drawn into the shorter boys back by Brendan's thumb.

"UHG! Nate! You messed up my bookshelf" He released his grip and took out one of the books that the younger boy was looking at earlier. "Now I have to reorganize."

As the ruby eyed boy messed with the books Nate sat on the bed and stared at him. He watched his filled out arm extend to put the journal on a nearby dresser, it wasn't for his eyes, he reminded himself. The thin teen wanted to know what was in it now, probably something personal, a deep dark secret, maybe Brendan was evil and kept all his memories of evil deeds sealed away in the journal.

But the hand writing wasn't his, so maybe it was someone else's personal diary that Brendan was holding on to. Or maybe it held scandalous secrets of black mail, Nate let his thoughts run wild coming up with extreme scenarios in which revealed Brendan to be a bigger asshole than he already was.

"Can I help you? You've been staring at me for a solid minute." With a reflective glimmer the last of the books that Nate took out of place was put back into the shelf. Brendan's wet hair dripped beads of water down his neck, leaving wet trials on his skin.

"You look better without a hat on…" He didn't realize what he had said till after he said it and quickly covered his mouth as if it were a sin to compliment the other boy.

"You look better minding your own business rather than snooping around my room. Don't touch anything that doesn't belong to you." His hand quickly grabbed the journal and slid it in a bag hanging by the door. "What on earth is your problem? You can't just start messing with my stuff, I barley even know you. It's weird enough that you're sleeping in my bed." His pants made swiping sounds from dragging across the wooden floor as he trudged across the room to fetch his hat.

"Uh, why did you grab my hip?" Nate struggled to get up and follow Brendan in time when he opened his door to leave.

He paused and gave him the same mischievous grin from last night. "What are you talking about? I didn't grab your hip. Why in the world would I try to deliberately touch you?" Something in his voice almost sounded like mockery. When Nate gave his a twisted look the corners of his lips curled in satisfaction.

As they continued down the stairs Nate's milk chocolate eyes drifted back to Brendan's scrapes, the skin around them seemed red and swollen, where the hell did he go to get them? When he opened his mouth to say something about them he felt the other boy do his almost routinely elbow grab and pull Nate to the door.

"Wha-what are you doing?"

"I'm kicking you out, go to May's like you're supposed to. I have things I need to do today and quite frankly babysitting you hasn't exactly been a barrel of Mankeys."

"If you call that babysitting then you're the shittiest Babysit-"

"Goodbye, come back tonight if you don't work things out with your friends."

Everyone seemed to be off doing their own thing, Hugh and Rosa were nowhere to be seen, Nate felt his heart sink when he came to the conclusion that both of them wanted to spend as much time away from him as possible. It took him a while to notice it wasn't just his friends that were missing, more than half of the group was absent, the only people he recognized were the Sinnoh kids, May, and Bianca.

"Where is everyone else?" He asked the hostess who was walking into the kitchen.

"Uh, I'm not exactly sure, I think they went to Rustboro city."

Relief flooded over Nate, maybe his friends went there too, maybe they weren't mad at him.

"More importantly where is Brendan?" Her blue eyes narrowed at the boy accusingly.

"Like I would know!"

"I just figured since you were sleeping with him you'd know."

His face burst into shades of red "W-what!? I'm not sleepi-"

"Don't even try to defend yourself. He's my best friend, I can tell when he's screwing someone." She glanced over at Nate who was covering his face. "Plus you're kind of captain obvious."

"You can't tell him you know! He'll think I told you! Then he'll kick my ass!"

"Too late. I've already talked to him about it yesterday. I'm his best friend, I know everything." She gave him a look that said more than her words, it was like she knew a dirty secret about Nate that even he wasn't aware of. "Don't worry about him. He wouldn't hurt a fly."

His stomach began to twist into colorful knots "Does he always act like this when he sleeps with someone?"

"Act like what?"

"An asshole!"

She rolled her eyes at him, "He usually actually knows the people he sleeps with, so no. You aren't his type so it's kind of expected for you two to butt heads."

Nate pondered for a moment, he wasn't sure if he felt better with her explanation or not, in a way it was kind of insulting when she said he wasn't his type. It wasn't like he liked him or anything, he just wanted to be likable. His mind flashed back to the questions he had asked Brendan right after they had fucked and then to the rumors Ethan and Lyra had heard. Brendan said he wasn't gay, but there was a rumor that he was. "Has Brendan ever dated a guy?"

"He screwed you." She growled under her breath as if that should be a good enough answer.

"But has he ever DATED a guy?" When Nate had asked him if he had been with a guy he told him it wasn't up for discussion. "Is he embarrassed about being with guys?"

"It's none of your business if he has or not. If you're so curious just ask him, not me."

"I did. He wouldn't tell me."

"Then why do you think I'm going to tell you?" She hissed at him and shoved her way around him to leave. "I don't even know why he slept with you. And to be honest I don't think he does either."

Nate could tell by the way she lowered her voice that the last part wasn't for him to hear.

When the group that went to Rustboro city returned Nate was disappointed to see that only Rosa was among them, as soon as she made eye contact with him he knew that she was going to give him a talking, and it wasn't going to be enjoyable. He made his way about half way through the house, almost to the back door before she grabbed him.

"We need to talk." The sternness in her voice wasn't a good sign.

"Oh r-really? What about?" He tried to act aloof but her oceanic blue eyes kept him petrified.

"You know what about." She walked to the same door that Nate was planning to escape out of and beckoned him to follow. Once outside she sat on the ground and leaned against the side of the house. The nice thing about May's place was it had a perfect view of the pine forest behind it, there was a dip between the base of the woods and the small hill her house was built on. If you looked over your shoulder you could see Brendan's house standing quietly at the bottom of the hill.

"You know he stayed in Oldale because he didn't want to see you." Rosa dug her nails into the earth and uprooted some of the grass.

"Yeah I kind of figured." The brown eyed boy ran his fingers through his hair. "I didn't mean to hit him…"

"Why did you do it?" A gentle breeze blew over the hill and tussled her long hair a bit, although she looked mad there was a sweetness to her.

"I got scared, In that moment I had this strange sensation that if he brought up what happened I would have to relive it, so I panicked and I punched him." He stared at the ground numbly, "I really didn't mean to hurt him, I did it to protect myself, not to inflict pain."

There was a long pause "Yeah, he knows that. He's just frustrated with you because you won't talk about the-"

"Don't."

"Nate." Her voice was sweet and tender, it was the same kind of voice she used when tries to sooth her Pokemon if they've been hurt in battle. "You'll need to talk about it someday, it's been well over a year." She started to rub his back when he began to close his legs into his chest. "Hugh doesn't hate you, he just need's space from you. I mean, you punched him in the face."

"Does it look bad? What did people say when he went back to May's yesterday?"

She started chuckling, "When people asked what happened he said 'What do you think? I ran into a branch!', nobody thinks you hurt him so don't worry."

He smiled "He's a shitty liar."  
"yeah, he is."

Once again they sat there in silence, it was nice to be able to sit next to someone and not have to argue or feel the need to run away. The scent outside was sweet and intoxicating it was very similar to the smell of Rosa's Serperior's Petal dance. He wondered if she brought that Pokemon with her.

"Let's got back inside." Rosa eventually decided for them.

For the rest of the day Nate held close to Rosa's side while events slowly played out. It was the first time since they had arrived that he started to feel comfortable with his peers, he even managed to connect with Green.

They all seemed to slowly grow familiar with his edgy bashfulness. Some of the Sinnoh kid's offered to battle with him but he politely declined that as well as Red's offer to check out his Pokemon. Everything started looking good for him, and he should be happy. But he wasn't, the guilt about punching Hugh ate away at him, and he couldn't stop thinking about Brendan. He concluded that he had an unhealthy obsession with wanting to know things about him. Mostly because he was closed off from everyone else. But there was also thing nagging truth within him that he had mixed feelings about the introvert, he wasn't sure if he should trust him or not. He wondered if maybe he wanted to be able to trust him now because he foolishly trusted him with his body the other night without even knowing him.

What did the other kids know about him? May only told him as much as Brendan did, her friendship with him seemed to be very defensive. He figured out enough that she was probably his only friend, somehow that realization didn't surprise him even a little. Their friendship kind of reminded him of his own with Hugh who was just as defensive over him, but it wasn't in the same way. With May and Brendan it looked as if she was trying to protect his honorable reputation. Like his reputation was even worth guarding. With Hugh and Nate it was more like Hugh was trying to make sure Nate wouldn't get hurt, or end up accidentally hurting himself.

"Didn't you hear me?" Rosa's voice cut through his thoughts.

"Huh?"

"I said I'm going back to Oldale, are you going to stay with us tonight?"

He remembered Brendan saying that he could come back if his friends were still mad at him, obviously Rosa thought Hugh and him would be ok enough to stay in a hotel together, and she was probably right, but when the idea passed through him he feel a sick nervous tension in his stomach. Maybe Brendan won't mind his company tonight, or maybe he would even enjoy his company. Ok that was dreaming.

"No…" He already felt guilty for saying that. Brendan surely wasn't offering his home to Nate for the fun of it, it was if he had no other choice.

"Well, see you later then, take care." She waved goodbye.

Nate gave a weak wave back and watched her leave for the path to Oldale. When he could no longer see her he decided it was best to suck it up and head over to Brendan's. He justified his intrusion by telling himself that this was a chance to find out more about Brendan, even though it was without his permission. It was ok to do that though, he kept repeating this in his head, how else is he supposed to know if he could trust him or not? What if he was a dangerous person?

Brendan's house was empty as well as locked, Nate failed to realize that when the other teen said he had things to do, that meant things away from home. Embarrassment flooded over him, he dropped his back against the door and allowed for himself to slide down onto the doorstep, he had no other choice but to wait for the white hatted trainer. Well, there was always May's house but she kind of scared him, and then he guess he could try to find his way to Oldale though he had only been there once, not to mention Rosa would question why he just didn't go with her in the first place. So he really did have other options, just not admirable ones.

The sun had gone down long ago and the sweat on his skin dried to a sticky salt, Hoenn was uncomfortable. He'd much rather be home in Unova where the weather was at a constant mild heat this time of year. His mind started to wander a bit back to his home region, Hugh and Rosa had left most of their Pokemon there, but he knew that they each took three with them. As for Nate, he only had one Pokemon anyways so he just took it. The more he started to think about his Pokemon the more his heart began to sink. He wasn't cut out to be a trainer, he should of never gone on a journey.

"What are we sitting for?"

"AH!" The ruby eyed teen caught Nate off guard, he didn't even realize that the older boy had sat himself down be sides him. "How long have you been sitting here!?"

"Maybe a minute, you seemed to be deep in thought." He raised his eyebrow in curiosity, something was different about him. "How long have you been waiting for me? All day?"

"As if I'd wait for you that long! Just a couple of minutes, that's all."

He leaned back into his elbows and flashed the brown eyed boy a crooked smile. "So I take it you aren't getting along with your little friend?"

Nate gaped at his word choice, Hugh was far from little. "He didn't come today. Have- Have you been drinking?"

"I might of swung by May's house just a minute ago, and I might have found a couple of half empty bottles, who cares, I'm not one to let good things go to waste."

"Great, so you're drunk." Nate rested his head between his knees.

"I told you I don't get drunk, just a little whimsical, I'm completely aware right now." He reached his hand out and lightly touched the other teens back who instantly whipped his head around to face him, he couldn't tell in the dark but Brendan was positive Nate's face was flaming red.

"D-don't do that, it's weird."

"Really?" He cooed, "You don't have any problem with a guy sticking it in your butt, but you think it weird when he touches your back?

"I never said that I didn't have a problem with it." He quickly hissed in embarrassment.

Brendan quickly sat up as if he just figured out a great mystery. "Ah! But you never said that you did either!" He placed his hands on either side of Nate, causing the brunette to lose his balance and drop to the concrete slab. "And we did it! And I stuck it in you and you tried to hold back but you moaned, and screamed in pleasure!"

"I DID NOT! You're exaggerating!"

"Maybe a little," His hand slid up Nate's shirt and roughly stroked his belly like he was a piece meat he just wanted to rip apart. Nate couldn't breathe. "But you wanted to! I know you did! You're so cute and innocent that you were scared to make noises!" He paused for a moment after he realized what he just said, "I maaaay have gone a little over the top with drinking tonight, but I'm not drunk. I swear." With a quick squeeze to the younger boy's side he withdrew himself from hovering over Nate and proceeded to the door only to hang his head back for a second. "Next time we have sex though I want you to scream like an animal!"

Before the Unova boy knew it Brendan was already in the house doing who knows what, giving him only a little bit of time to himself to comprehend what just happened. He understood completely that this flirty persona of the sultry teenager was going to be replaced by a grumpy pain in the ass by morning. His hand couldn't help but twist the hem of his shorts as he felt his heart cramp. "Ne-next time we have sex?" Why was he excited?

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Sooooooo, it wouldn't hurt to get more reviews, really, I'd be super stoked if you reviewed this crappy word porn and let me know what you think. Come on I know you want to. ;D


	4. Tournament

**A/n: **I'm surprised that I did this whole chapter yesterday, usually I have more distractions.

I literally have a friend who calls me up every time I finish these chapters, it's starting to become a little creepy how that always happens, of course he doesn't know what I'm doing or writing, I would just die if he did. I'm rambling. READ!

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"Listen up everyone! Me and Red have worked long and hard picking out appropriate opponents for this Tournament schedule and we want you all to participate, No exceptions!" Green stood before everyone with his big bad, I'm in charge attitude. "I'm looking at you Hilda, no coping out of this like everything else we've tried to do as a group."

Hilda rolled her eyes with less enthusiasm, "Whatever."

"There's 15 of us, so we had to do a lot of shifting around with battle styles,"

Nate's eye's fluttered open from sun bathing to quickly count everyone in the clearing. "13, 14, and me. 15" The words quietly escaped his lips, it didn't go unheard though, Hugh and Rosa both glanced over with equally as worried faces.

The two Unova boy's hadn't said a single word to each other all morning and even went out of their way to avoid each other, there was an awkward moment when they both crossed paths on the way to use May's bathroom, when they reached for the door at the same time they stared at each other in shock for about a half a minute. Nate couldn't take his eyes off of the bruise on the blue haired boy's cheek, which was healing fast, fading into shades of lavenders and yellow. Hugh seized the opportunity of his friends distraction and went into the bathroom first.

Red started to list off names, "Lucas VS Myself, Hilda VS Ethan, May VS Bianca, Green VS Hugh, Brendan VS Dawn,"

Nate's ear perked up and he secretly scanned the crowd for Brendan. He looked like a Meowth that had got water poured on him. May forced him to come to this even though Nate witnessed him trying every kind of way to get out of it.

This was the day he decided he really didn't like May. She switched things up this morning by going to Brendan's house instead of the other way around. The two boy's didn't do anything of course, but when she saw them in bed together she gave him the one of the shittiest look's he had ever gotten. Later before they both accompanied her to her house she on purposely tried to exclude him from their conversations. When they started to talk about something that Nate could relate to, she would pick up on that and change it to something very Hoenn exclusive.

"And Hilbert VS Nate." The sound of his name called him back to reality.

"I CAN'T!"

Green narrowed his eyes at the timid brunette, "What do you mean you can't? I said no exceptions."

Nate tensed up, he knew Green explain thoroughly that he couldn't cope out but he really couldn't battle. Everyone else held their gazes on him expecting an alibi, he didn't know what to say. "I-I just can't. My- Pokemon… I" He caught May's glare, she looked like she wanted to smack him just for disrupting the order. "I don't have any Pokemon." He lied and quickly looked to the ground.

"But you said you challenged Gyms." Red gently pointed out.

Crap! Did he say that the other day? Now how was he going to get out of this.

"He left his Pokemon in Unova." Hugh yawned loudly, acting like it was no big deal. Nate shot him a thankful look.

"UUUGGHH! Now we have to rewrite the tournament schedule!" Green groaned in disbelief.

"Just take Nate out, it's not that hard." Red glanced over his shoulder.

"I know it's just. Ugh! We put so much time into making 15 trainers work!"

"Well if Nate doesn't have to battle then neither do-"

"No Hilda! Absolutely not! Nate's not doing it because he doesn't have a choice!"

A few more grumbles and set up's later the first battle between Lucas and Red started. Everyone took multiple steps away from their original seats to give Lucas's massive Torterra room.

Hugh took this chance to grab Nate and pull him into the forest and away from the battles.

"I'm sorry Nate."

"About?" he knew very damn well what he was sorry about but wanted to act like it didn't bother him anymore.

"I didn't mean to try to force you to talk about the"

"Don't say it."

"I'm not. Don't worry."

He sighed in relief, they had made up, this means no more having to sleep with Brendan, no more anxiety about his best friend, they can just go through the rest of the vacation without any more problems.

They sat in the red dirt and leaned against one of many of the large boulders that coated the pine forest. The brunette opened his mouth to say something but it was quickly covered by Hugh's hand as his best friend pointed into the distance.

Two large grey and black pelted canine Pokemon were sniffing around at the base of a tree, they were accompanied by three pups, by the looks of it they were different evolutions. One of the larger one's lifted its head at looked towards the pair of teens by the rock for a moment and then went back to their sniffing.

Even though it was clear that the wild Pokemon were uninterested in the boy's, Nate still caught Hugh dropping his hand to his Pokeballs just in case. The younger felt so useless whenever battles were involved, for the last year he had to rely on Hugh or Rosa every time he wanted to go anywhere that wild Pokemon could attack him at. That wasn't often though, he rarely ever even leaves his home anymore. If someone were to tell him three months back that he would be visiting Hoenn, he would have dubbed them crazy.

The pack of canine Pokemon left them alone once again, or so they thought.

"Wow they were kind of majestic." The brunette commented.

"Do you think they were rare?" The other boy questioned.

Just then a roaring laughter broke through their whispers, it was too close for comfort. "BWAHAHAHA! HE CALLED THEM MAJESTIC!" Brendan cried from the other side of the rock. Damnit! How does he keep appearing everywhere without Nate noticing? "And you! You Asked if they were Rare!? Priceless!"

Hugh balled his fist and climbed half way over the rock. "Were you spying on us!?"

Brendan scooted around the rock next to Nate and away from Hugh. "That wasn't the original Plan, I was just going to fetch you, your turn for the tournament is soon."

"How soon!?"

"I'd say you should head over there in about fifteen minutes or so. That Bianca girl is taking her sweet time deciding which Pokemon to use."

Hugh returned to his previous spot next to Nate but gave Brendan a quick scowl before leaning against the rock. "Don't eavesdrop on me and Nate. We have personal things to talk about and you have no right sticking your nose into it."

"Really? Maybe someone else here should be taking your advice a little seriously! Isn't that right You little snoop?" He pinched Nate's nose and earn sputtering noises from the young teenager.

His face was flame red, not because his breathing was thwarted but because he was fairly certain what Brendan was referring to.

Hugh took the other teen's gesture as bullying and quickly pushed the white hatted boy's hand away from his friend. "Don't tease him! Go back where you came from, he hasn't done anything to you."

"It's ok Hugh! He's a jack ass like this all the time. Just ignore him." Nate managed to speak up before Brendan said something that the brown eyed boy just knew would set off his best friend.

"All the time? Since when have you been hanging around this kid?"

"He's been staying with me since you're a shitty friend."

Hugh looked at Nate for a moment accusingly and hurt "You've been telling people I'm a shitty friend?"

"He hasn't, I have. Who leaves their friend crying in the dirt just for dropping a trainer card?" He flashed the two Unova boy's a challenging grin. Nate suddenly realized that Brendan was TRYING to start a fight with Hugh, he had the slightest idea why, but he knew enough about the red eyed boy that he would of just shrugged Hugh's comment's off if he didn't care.

"What's wrong with you!? I don't even know you!"

"Oops, look at the time, shouldn't you get going? You don't want Green to chew you out for avoiding the tournament do you?"

The other red eyed boy looked at his Xtransciever at groaned. "Come on Nate, let's get away from this guy."

Nate stood up obediently to follow but felt his heart begin to palpitate when Brendan grabbed his wrist to pull him back down. He had a stern look in his eyes. "Um, No Nate. I need to talk to you."

"Like hell you do! I'm not going to let you bully him." Hugh took a step back to the rock but sneered in disgust when his friend sat back down with Hoenn's biggest asshole.

"It's ok Hugh, I'll come watch you before the battle ends. It will only be a minute." He was afraid that Hugh was going to get mad at him all over but was surprised to see him give in.

"Fine! But don't forget you're after me!" He pointed to Brendan and stomped away in defeat.

After Hugh was gone Brendan stretched out his arms and gave a loud yawn. "Man! What was he all about? Some people just have the worst personalities."

"That was you! You started picking a fight with him. He didn't do anything!" Nate raised his voice in Hugh's defense.

"Oh. Was it? So I was talking to May earlier,"

"Oh no." The brunette quietly moaned to himself.

"Oh no is right! Where do you get off? Stop asking her personal things about me! If I'm not going to tell you something, neither is she! Jeez sleeping with you sure was a mistake."

Ouch.

"There's nothing that you do that I don't see or hear about so stop being a snoop."

Nate felt his body feel hot with embarrassment from being called out on. So much for finding out what kind of person Brendan was, then again, it was the fourth day anyways and he already was staring to figure him out through experience. "Sorry." He mumbled.

"What was that?" Brendan pretended he didn't hear him.

"Sorry, I was getting in your business, I'm just a little curious about you I guess."

"Well curiosity killed the Delcatty."

"The what?"

"Ugh, never mind." He leaned his head back against the rock and enjoyed the sounds of the forest.

They sat there for who knows how long, there was a gentle breeze in the air and Nate could tell that Brendan was comfortable but he himself, was anything but that. For some reason he was hyper aware of every movement the older teen made, whether it was him lifting his arm to itch his face or the slightest curling of his lips.

"Can I ask you a question?"  
"If you want." Brendan pressed his brows together, annoyed that Nate ruined the silence.

"Um. It's kind of weird."

"Just spit it out, I have to leave soon anyways."

"Why did you pull away from me when I tried to kiss you?"

"I don't kiss one night stands." He was very quick to respond.

Nate hid his face behind his arms and knees but still dared to peer over to look at the other boy. "But last night you said something about having sex again."

"I'm not gay." He changed his answer almost instantly.

The other boy had to stop himself from asking 'why not' when he felt sincere disappointment with his answer. "Oh. I think have a-" He stopped himself from saying a thought that flashed through him.

"You think you have a what?" Brendan's famous eyebrow lifted as he gently pulled Nate's arm away from his face so he could look at it.

His blood ran cold. Why did he almost say that? It was like he just said everything that went into his brain. "I have nothing! Nothing at all! You have a tournament though! Let's go do that! Ahahaha!" He quickly stood up so he could get away from him, he had enough social skills to know when he should keep some things to himself, this was one of those times.

He made it back to the clearing just in time to see the end of Hugh's battle with Green, so when Hugh scanned the group for Nate after he lost he didn't question if he had missed the battle or not.

Nate found relief when Hugh didn't ask about what Brendan wanted, he just sat down with him and Rosa and acted like his loss was no big deal. But you could tell that it secretly bothered him that he didn't win, and it was very likely he was already planning ways to provoke a rematch with Green.

"Samurott and I are out of practice anyways, if we were in our Prime Green wouldn't have had a chance."

Rosa was the only one to respond with a very bored "Ah, yes I'm positive that was the case."

"What? You don't believe me? I'll have you know I took out Skyla's Swoobat in one hit."

"That's because you used your Zebrastrike" She rolled her eyes. "Type advantage doesn't make you a master, it just makes you handicapped."

"Yeah but I didn't use an electric attack! Nate tell her that happened! You were there!"

The blue haired teen was not heard though, Nate was entirely focused on Brendan who had just released a Flygon to face off the Sinnoh girls Floatzel. His eye's wouldn't leave the white hatted teenagers face even after he gracefully commanded his Flygon to use Thunder Punch.

Throughout the battle there were flashes of wings and water attacks, sometimes even droplets of water would land on the brunettes arm but he didn't mind them. He wished he could do battles again. He wanted to be included in the tournament and fight with the confidence he used to have.

Towards the end of the battle which was getting serious Brendan took off his hat to readjust his dark slick back hair, his eyes landed on Nate who was watching with admiration, a smile of mockery claimed his face as he commanded Flygon's final winning move.

Nate vowed to not look at him for the rest of the day because he was clearly getting an unhealthy obsession with him.

"What a show off." Hugh hissed under his breath.

"You're just jealous because you didn't win." Rosa laughed at him.

In the end of the first rounds it was Red, Hilda, May, Green, Brendan, Rosa, and Lyra who won, now they were onto round two and Nate just wanted to leave. He could only take so much of these Pokemon battles.

It seemed to be that Green had already figured out what to do with the odd number of trainers so it wasn't like they took a whole day trying to figure things out. With Rosa and May up for the first battle Hugh and Nate were left alone in their little seating area.

"Hey I meant to apologize for hitting you earlier, we were kind of interrupted though. Haha." Nate pressed his forehead against Hugh's shoulder as a sign of forgiveness for what Hugh apologized for earlier.

"It's ok, I knew you didn't mean to hurt me." He thought for a moment. "But damn, interruption is right, what is that Brendan kid's problem?"

"I-I was actually referring to the Pokemon, but yeah I guess he interrupted too."

"Well… I don't like him."

"Yeah, I noticed that. I don't think he likes you either so you're ok. You guys can go hate each other together."

"So you don't hate him?"

Swallowing in discomfort Nate looked away from his friend. "I don't HATE him. I don't get along with him well. I mean I think if I hated him I would of toughed it out and went home with Rosa last night."

"He, he doesn't bully you or hurt you right?"

Nate's mind flashed back to the countless occasions were Brendan would do something suggestive and deny it, but that was more like teasing, he wasn't exactly making fun of him right? He steadied his breath when he thought about the pain when Brendan penetrated him, but that wasn't so he could hurt him, he was sure.

"No, he's tends to leave me alone."

"Good because I have a selfish favor to ask you."

They paused their conversation for a moment to watch Rosa's Scrafty headbutt into May's Blaziken.

"What's that?"

"Well, Hoenn is a very hot place, and the hotel's air conditioning is out,"

Oh great, Nate didn't like where this was going.

"You know Rosa doesn't share beds and you and me would be miserable sweating in the same bed together,"

He grimaced at the thought of having to share a bed with Hugh in this heat, the guy rolls around and has even pushed Nate off the bed before.

"Do you think you could stay at"

"I'd have to ask him."  
"just till the conditioning gets fixed, I don't want you to have to suffer with that asshole for too long."

The rest of the tournament was less than exciting, it ended up being Red and Lyra at the top, by then everyone just wanted it to be over with, it was night time, they had to take a break in between battles to heal Pokemon and eat dinner. Red won, it was kind of expected.

On their way back Hugh gave him a reminding glance to intrude on Brendan's life. He kind of knew that Brendan wouldn't mind too much but Hugh didn't so he was really persistent about it. It kind of made Nate feel good though to know that his best friend was willing to suffer the heat if Brendan did say no for some reason.

"Uh, Brendan?" Nate reached for his arm but quickly drew his hand back when the older boy turned around.

"What?"

"Can I stay with you again tonight?"

"Why? Did you and your friend already have another fight?"

May who was walking next to him like the loyal bitch she was snickered.

"No, the air conditioning is out at the Hotel he's staying at. It- it would be unpleasant sharing a bed."

"So you want to stay with me because staying with your friends would be, 'unpleasant?' You're using me for air conditioning?" His eye's shined with both accusation and fascination.

Nate gave a small nod, when he put it that way it really did seem selfish of him.

Brendan looked over at May who mouth the word 'Don't' and for a moment Nate really thought he was going to go with her but relaxed when he smiled and said "Sure."

May's face twisted into a betrayed look before she decided she had better things to do than hang around them.

"Why does she hate me so much?"

"Just ignore it or ask her. I don't care enough to ask."

"I guess I'll never know then." No way in hell was he going to go out of his way to talk to her.

"So," Brendan lightly punched Nate's shoulder "Did you like how I battled? I saw you watching me."

"Yeah, I guess. Your- Your Flygon is kind of cool." He admitted.

"You weren't looking at my Pokemon." He whispered

"What?"

"Nothing." He glanced around seeing that he could make an escape from the group finally, even though they seemed to be staying late tonight, when the older teen started to walk away he paused and went back to retrieve Nate's hand. "Want to hang with me instead of them?"

"But you can't stand me." He blinked in confusion.

"Yeah. May doesn't seem to be in the mood to hang out, and you're a little more tolerable than some of the other guests."

He was talking about Hugh, why did he seem to have a problem with him?

"I-I guess." He felt his face flush when Brendan pulled him by his hand, it was warm and rough. He knew that it probably meant nothing to the other boy but it was just one of the many little things that he added to his list of obsessions.

The grass by his house was wet from sprinklers being on all day, he remembered watching Brendan turn them on this morning,

"Shit, I need to turn those off." The white hatted boy let go of Nate and went to the side of the house to turn them off.

Nate's eye's couldn't help but wander back to May's house, he should call Hugh and tell him he was staying with Brendan again tonight. It was late outside so it was hard to make out in the darkness but he could of sworn someone was still outside of May's watching them. He hoped maybe it was just the hostess looking back at them or no one at all, just his imagination, but something told him that it was someone else.

It was probably Three in the morning when Nate was woken up by the sounds of Brendan fumbling his way into his bedroom, the brunette couldn't remember him ever leaving but by the looks of it the Hoenn boy was out for a while. Just like the other morning he smelled of earth and had scrapes all over him, some were worse than others, his nose sported a rather large gash that reflected in the moonlight, he was bleeding.

He watched as his bed mate limped over to the other door that held his bathroom, this was actually a little worse than the other morning, he confirmed. Brendan cussed under breath when he stubbed his toe on the toilet but tried to remain quiet for Nate's sake thinking he was asleep.

The door shut hard and the familiar hiss of the shower was turned on. When they spent time together earlier it really was just hanging out, they had watched a movie together with a great amount of distance from each other on the couch. Nate had called Hugh earlier so the only thing that kept him distracted from actually watching the film was that horrible feeling that someone had watched them hold hands earlier.

It wasn't like they liked each other or anything, but it would look that way to anyone who didn't know that.

After the movie was done Brendan said he was going to bed, and that's how they ended up here. The ruby eyed boy must have waited for Nate to fall asleep to leave.

There was a pounding in his chest when he heard Brendan climb out of the shower, he felt like it was wrong to be awake right now, that this should be a private arrival that Nate shouldn't know about.

When the door clicked open Brendan was only wearing boxer's, he took his clothes to a hamper and set down his Pokeball down on his bookshelf. Aha! So he had his Pokemon with him. The teenager stopped his movement for a moment. "Nate?" He whispered.

Nate decided to stick with pretending to be asleep, which made him feel a little guilty. After a while Brendan must of shrugged it off and started to move around again, the sounds of a clock in the hallway became very recognizable to Nate in between sounds.

Finally the mattress moved from the other boy dropping heavily onto it. Something about the way he slowly moved came across sad and lonely.

The Unova boys back was turned to him and after listening to tradeoffs between his heart beating and the hallway clock he suddenly flinched in surprise when Brendan wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in closer.

"I know you're awake but I honestly don't care."

The last thing Nate remembered before falling asleep was Brendan pressing his freshly cut nose into his cheek.

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**A/N:** Oh BTW **Blosh,** Just for the record I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan girl, I mean I might be, just I don't do the screaming or anything. More of a silent gusher. Heeheehee C:

Annnyyyhhoooow totally would be cool if you haven't (or have) reviewed this before to drop one down. :D I am fueled by chit chats.


	5. Brendan Darling

**A/N:** Did you notice I made a picture for this story? C: I suck at drawing humans interacting with each other.

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"Brendan darling wake up! Your father is coming home for the first time in months and I want this place spick and span."

Brendan threw himself away from Nate and stumbled out of bed when he heard the sporadic footsteps pound in the hallway.

"Nate hide in the bathroom!" He hissed quickly to the other boy who barley had anytime to figure what was going on. "Hold on mom! Don't come in, I'm getting changed!"

He locked the door just in case she didn't hear him and came barging through. The brunette was impressed on how Brendan was able to grab a shirt, pull it on, and roughly shove Nate into the bathroom all within seconds. His face gave an apologetic look before he quickly whispered, "Just wait here, I promise I won't be long."

Nate sat on the floor and leaned against the wall still trying to comprehend what was happening. There were sounds of the older teen fumbling to get his pants on and then the muted click of him opening his door. The bathroom was unusually dark for this time of day, and there were light tapping sounds coming from the fogged up window. He rubbed his eyes red and tried to look around the dark room. Some of Brendan's clothes as well as a bag were still on the floor from his early morning shower.

"When did you get home?" Brendan's voice was familiar to the Unova boy now.

"Oh no more than five minutes ago. I was at your fathers and he has decided to come visit for the week." The voice was in an elegant squeal.

"Dad is going to take a break from gym battles for a week? Is he allowed to do that?"

"Why of course honey! Oh this is so exciting. It's been too long since the whole family has been united. We can spend the whole day together."

"Oh. Well uh, May has this party thing going on for the month and I really think she will get mad if I skip out another day." His voice quickened, did he just use May's party as an excuse?

"Non-sense darling, I've already stopped by May's, no one will be over there because of the rain." That explained why the bathroom was so dark. "Now clean up your room, I don't want your father coming home to a mess."

Moments after Nate heard her flighty footstep run down the stairs the bathroom door opened. Brendan stood tall with an entirely embarrassed look, instead of helping Nate get up he joined him on the floor and sighed.

"W-was that your mom?" The other boy gave him a look and he instantly felt like an idiot for asking that.

"Unfortunately."

"She seems nice. "

"She lacks sensitivity." Brendan woke up at the same time Nate did and he already looked like he was at his day's limit. It was the first time the brown eyed boy has gotten a good look at him since his mysterious absence that morning, the gash on his nose already was starting to scab. "I forgot she was coming home today."

"Why does she want you to clean your room? It seems pretty organized to me." Nate meant for that to be light hearted but Brendan made it serious by whipping his head around to face him in irritation.

"Because it will never be good enough to her. Now about you, for all she will know, you were sleeping in another room, got it?"

He nodded and followed Brendan out of his room and into the hall way.

"Wait here." He placed his white hat on his head and quickly ran into a room that was across the hall, Nate could hear the bed squeaking under Brendan's pressure. When the teen return he gave the brunette a smug smile. "Just making evidence."

When they got down stairs his mother was cooking breakfast in the kitchen, she was tall, thin wasted, and over all, looked like the perfect house wife. Her eye's fluttered when she saw Nate and she couldn't hold back a smile.

"Brendan darling, Who's this young man?"

"Nate, he's one of May's guests."

Her eye's flickered the face of the devil for a moment before she walked over to the boy and pinched his cheek. "Well you are just adorable, how long have you two been dating?"

Brendan choked on his own spit and Nate's face flamed into red.

"Mooom! We aren't dating!"

"Well why not? He's just darling! Much better than that, Steven!" She practically snarled when she mentioned Steven's name.

Nate's eyes lit up, who was Steven?

"How can you say that? You've just met him!" The red eyed teen gaped with embarrassment.

"Well he's an appropriately aged young man, and I think based on your history that's enough to judge whether he's a good fit for you or not. Honestly Brendan, Steven was a tad bit-"

"Mom! Don't talk about Steven!" He hissed and held back a pained expression before turning and grabbing Nate's arm. "Since you seem to want the day to be a family day I'm going to walk Nate back to Oldale to meet up with his friends."

"Um…" Nate tried to say something about Brendan's killer grip on his arm but the teen just pulled him to the door.

"Oh non-sense! Nate can spend the day with us, besides, you'll catch a cold walking in that weather." She gave him a pearly white smile. "Do you like eggs Nate? My cooking is much better than anything you'll find in the Birch household." She didn't wait for a reply, she started to rummage the fridge looking for eggs. "Brendan darling, I thought I told you to go to the Market and buy some more Milk. This stuff is expired."

"Sorry mum." He grumbled and beckoned Nate to follow him into his living room. They sat on the couch and stared at the blank TV, neither of them even bothered to grab the remote.

"S-sorry that you're stuck with me."

"It's actually probably better this way. Sorry about her." He gestured to the kitchen. "I kind of figured she'd assume you and me were dating."

Nate's lips curled into a mischievous grin. "So! You are gay!"

He hid his eye's behind his hand and cursed at himself. "There's really no point in hiding it now. Yes, I am gay, bravo you figured it out."

"Nate dear, do you want your eggs scrambled or fried?"

"Scram-"

Brendan's eyes shot right open.

"Fried! He wants them fried!"

Nate threw him a look, what was that about?

"Thankyou darling." She almost went back into the kitchen but then turned around and looked at Brendan skeptically. "What happened to your nose honey?"

"Branch."

"Hmm." She shook her head in disbelief and left the two boys alone again.

"What really happened to your nose?"

"Did you not just hear me? I said a branch!"

Nate got on his knees and crawled over to Brendan to take a closer look. The older teen held his breath as the younger's hand reached out and lightly touched he scab.

"It looks deep… does it hurt at all?" His hand slid to the side of his face and rested at the jaw bone, Nate blushed, he was afraid Brendan could hear his heart beating, for some reason he wanted to be close to the ruby eyed teen. He bit his lower lip to hold himself from saying anything stupid and looked into Brendan's eyes, which dilated at the eye contact.

Like a flash of lightening Brendan grabbed the hand and abruptly pushed Nate away from him "Only when you touch it!"

When Brendan's mom had finished making the eggs it became clear to Nate why he didn't want him to have scrambled eggs.

"Why are her scrambled egg's red?" He whispered into the elder's ear.

"She put's in an extra ingredient into scrambled egg, it taste as bad as it looks. Some foods are bad tasting because she's a health nut."

Nate stabbed his fork into the fried eggs and smiled. "These are really good. Thank you for making me breakfast."

"Aren't you just precious! Brendan you should learn some manners from your friend." She took a bite of her eggs and grimaced at the taste.

"He's not my friend." He grunted.

The brunette felt a sinking feeling in his stomach and suddenly he didn't feel like eating anymore.

"Brendan! How rude!"

"Whatever. What exactly do you and dad have in mind doing for the day? I mean this weather isn't exactly great."

"Well, I was thinking we could all sit around the table and play board games-"

"No! Vetoed!"

"Honestly Brendan, can you try to be a little more respectful to me? Anyhow, I guess we can just wait till your father gets here, maybe he'll have something in mind."

It finally occurred to Nate that he would be meeting his father, his mind instantly flashed back to the picture and his stomach began to turn even more.

Brendan excused himself claiming to need to use the restroom, but the brunette had a feeling that he was just trying to get away, even if it was for a moment.

"Nate dear, are you going to eat your food or would you like me to refrigerate it?" She softly asked him when she took a glance at his plate.

"I'm sorry, could you refrigerate it?" He felt guilty, she made it for him after all, but at the moment he was feeling a little overwhelmed and he couldn't even look at him food without feeling like vomiting.

Brendan's mom grabbed his plate and covered it before turning back to him with full blown interest. "So, you two really aren't dating?"

"N-no, sorry. I guess."

"But you like him right?"

"What? N-no! I mean, I don't know." He felt his face grow hot and the twist's in his belly got even worse, this time his heart began to ache too. He couldn't say no. There was a part of him that really didn't want to consider if he liked Brendan, especially when he almost blurted out that he thought he might like him yesterday.

"It's ok if you like him, he's just darling. Well. Usually. I'm sorry about his rudeness, he usually just ignores people if he doesn't get along."

"Ugh, Mom, what kind of crud are you telling him?"

Nate turned away from Brendan a little bit, if his mother though he had a crush on him, then what did Brendan think? He would probably be annoyed at him if thought he did.

"Nothing honey. So, pardon my rudeness, but if you two aren't dating, and you aren't friends, than why are you here?"

"The air condition-"

"His friends are jackass's."

"Brendan! Language!"

"It's true!"

Nate threw him a disgusted look. "They are not Jackass's! You're a jackass!"  
"Oh please, don't try defending them. I have given you shelter and company while they have done nothing but fight with you and ask you to sleep somewhere else. And don't think I haven't noticed this!" He lifted up Nate's undershirt sleeve to reveal the bruised skin from the other day.

"That was an accident." He hissed under his breath "Hugh just doesn't realize his own strength sometimes.

"Right, because squeezing someone's arm so tight that they bruise is an accident."

Brendan's father didn't arrive till around noon, Nate had been nervous about meeting him because of the picture of Brendan and his dad on his desk. It was just beyond creepy and it made the brunette wonder what exactly type of man he was.

When the handle of the door turned Nate did his best not to jump out of his seat in pure anxiety, instead he buried himself into the arm of the couch hoping he could disappear.

"Brendan my boy!" The white hatted teen put down his book as the middle aged man opened his arms wide inviting his son in for a hug. His father was an older reflection of Brendan with rougher features, this was not the man in the picture. They embraced for about five counts and then let go.

"Hello dear, welcome home, it's been a while." His mother went in for a kiss from her husband.

Nate held back and stayed on the couch, he felt a little awkward having to watch this family moment, but he was mostly just surprised finding out that the other boys dad was completely different than he though.

Maybe the silver haired man was a family friend then?

"Uh, who are you?" The gruff voice questioned the Unova boy.

"Oh darling, this is Nate." His wife piped up.

The older man pressed his eye brows together and gave Nate a hard long look, he then looked over to Brendan who was sitting back down to read, and then back at Nate.

"Oh, Honey!" Brendan's mom whispered something into his ear and just like magic his face lightened up.

"So Nate, where are you from?" He put his foot up against the wall so he could untie his shoe.

"U-Unova."

"Unova? I've been there. Twice, that was when I was a lot younger though. It was ok. What kind of Pokemon do you have?"

"Um… I… I don't know." He shuttered, for the last year or that has been one of the few questions he had struggled with most.

Brendan tore himself away from his book lifted an eyebrow at him for a moment.

"What do you mean you don't know? Are you unsure on type's? Or do you not have any Pokemon?"

Nate was sure Brendan's father didn't mean to come across intimidating but he was having a hard time looking the man in the eye.

"Yeah. Something like that."

"Well that's just not right. Every young man should have a Pokemon. I'll call up professor Birch tomorrow, good friend of mine, you might have met his daughter." He held out a hand to Nate, who timidly shook it. "You can call me Norman by the way."

"Um, Thank you Norman but I really don't need a Pokemon."

"Non-sense! No need to be modest, I can get you one easily." He gave out a hefty laugh.

"No no! I really don't need one! I don't think that's such a good idea!"

Brendan gave him another look, but this time he held his gaze and watched as Nate tensed up.

Man I remember when I got my first Pokemon, those were the days. Traveled all around Jhoto with it. Then I met Brendan's mom." He sighed in bliss. "Really. There's no fee, Hoenn has three great wonderful starters, it's no trouble at all. Let me call up the Professor."

He started shaking from the pressure now. "No I can't! I'm really bad with Pokemon! I won't-"

"Aw CRAP! I forgot to clean my room." Brendan got up and earned a twisted look from his mother.

"Brendan I told you to clean your room earlier, go do it now!" She broke her charming house wife character and screeched like a banshee.

"Awww really? Well, ok." His voice sounded so fake "I'm taking this guy to help though." His rough fingers grabbed Nate's wrist as he pulled him away from his family and up the stairs.

Once they were in his room Brendan locked the door and actually started to clean, leaving Nate to stand around awkwardly.

"Thank you." He managed to squeak.

"Eh." Was all that the ruby eyed teen said as he dusted the what already looked spotless book case.

"D-do you want me to help?"

"Not really."

A few more minutes passed and Nate was stuck laying on the bed listening to the rough taps of the down pour, not a single moment of the day did the rain hint at lightening up. He turned his head and looked at the picture again. So he wasn't his dad, then who was he? The worst part about the picture now was that it became even more possible that what it suggested to be true. He was about to just give up on figuring things out till a terrible idea struck him. Terrible, but still an idea.

He waited till Brendan made his way into the bathroom and behind the door before gently grabbing the frame, being careful not to make a sound. The picture came out of the glass seal smoothly, he held his breath before turning it to his back. Written in black ink was the name Steven, instantly he felt his stomach turn like he wanted to throw up.

"What are you doing!?" Brendan dropped his clothes and snatched the picture away from him.

"Nothing! I swear! I was just curious!"

"I doesn't look like nothing! Geez what's your problem!?" the picture bent when he tried to put it back in the frame, he cursed at it. "I should throw away this shit anyways." He slammed it face down on the desk and cursed again when the glass broke and cut his thumb. "Fuck!"

"I'm sorry!" Nate shrunk back into the head board.

"If you were sorry you wouldn't have snooped!" He hissed harshly at the younger teen.

"I'm sorry! I was just really curious! I was, uh I, um. Who is Steven!?"

"Like I'm going to tell you!" He shoved himself off the bed and went into the bathroom to wash off his thumb.

"Please tell me? I want to know!"

"Hell no! It's anything but your business!"

"But-"

"But what!?" Brendan was back on the bed again. "Look I don't go around questioning you and everyone you know about your Pokemon. So don't ask about Steven ok? Don't even ask about me! I have nothing to do with you!"

Nate sat in silence, he was so stunned he didn't know what to say. He knew in a way Brendan was right, but there was that nagging obsession of him wanted to know more about the other teen. Maybe he really did have a crush on him.

"Ha." Brendan let out a pained laugh and he looked at the picture again. "On second thought, maybe I should ask you about your Pokemon."

"Bathroom!" Nate squirmed to get off the bed but the older teen grabbed his ankle and pulled him over to him.

"Why don't you have any Pokemon Nate?" His voice was in an angry mockery that made the younger's spine chill.

"I don't know!" He whimpered when Brendan pinned his arms down and loomed over him.

"Don't lie, how can you not know? Tell me the truth, why don't you have Pokemon?"

"I just don't!" He tried to squirm out of his grip but the other teen pressed down more. He noticed though that even though he was being aggressive, he still made sure to stay clear of the bruises that Hugh left.

"Don't try to move, I'm bigger and stronger than you. Now explain to me why you claim to have no Pokemon when you clearly have a Pokemon with you right now."

"I don't! I don't know what you are talking about!"

"I've checked your stuff, I've seen the Pokeball." He thought for a moment and then snickered wickedly "Hey maybe I'm a little like you, sneaking through another person's personal belongings."

Once again the brunette tried freeing himself but was just pinned even harder. He scratched at the backs of Brendan's arms and did what he could to kick at his thighs but the older boy didn't even flinch.

"Just start telling me the truth!" He grunted.

"St-stop! I'm sorry! I have one Pokemon with me! But it doesn't really count. I'm sorry please let me go!" At the realization that he couldn't move he felt his eyelids grow hot and tears start to drip from his eyes, but because he was on his back he had to turn his head to the side in order to see correctly.

"Damn it! Now you're crying! Stop it!" He growled at him and gently let go of Nate's arms. He was still hanging over him but didn't do anything, instead he just watched him cry in silence for a bit. Finally he fell to his side and pulled Nate against his body. "I-I'm sorry, I went a little far with that. I just. I just want you to know I feel the same way about certain topics, I get scared and I feel like I'm suffocating. I don't cry though because no offense, but I'm more of a man than you are. But just so you know, Steven is one of those topics."

"Sorry…" He mumbled and covered his face. "I just want to know things about you."

The dark haired teen didn't say anything, just embraced him comfortably till they heard a noise call up to them.

"Brendan darling are you done with your cleaning yet? Your father wants to plan the week with you!"

Nate felt him tense up in irritation before yelling back at her, acknowledging that he heard him.

"Ugh! This better be good." He sat up and re-picked up his clothes. "Oh yeah, I'll find a way to stop my dad from asking May's dad for a Pokemon. And um…" He paused for a moment and lost himself looking at Nate.

He had stopped crying now but his eyes were a raw red. "What?"

"You'll have to sleep in the guest room while my parents are here. Sorry. It probably won't be too long" He flashed a smile opening his door to confront his dad.

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**A/N:** Awww they are so cute. I like cute things. Want to know what else is cute? Reviews.


	6. A Little Curious

**A/N:** Guess who took waaaaay too long of a break from this? That's right, I did! Sorry for the wait people who actually read this thing.

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Nate crouched by the back door, making sure that Brendan was out of ear shot when he pressed the handle away from him. He couldn't believe that he was doing this, it was so unlike him, but he just couldn't see another way around it. Sure, he could just ask Brendan what he was doing, but let's be honest, Brendan wouldn't tell him even if he was a brick wall.

Throughout the last week Nate had slept in the guest bedroom, he felt a little bit more independent sleeping alone which he concluded was a good thing. However, In the middle of the night he would wake up to the sensitive sound of Brendan returning home from who knows where. Occasionally the brunette would crack the door open and watch as the older teen would slowly walk to his room, his footsteps were the same unusually heavy pounds of loneliness that he only exposed after these outings. It made Nate a little sad to see him like this but the sympathy would usually melt away by the next day since Brendan would do or say something that embarrassed the Unova teen.

He didn't see much of Brendan for that week either, just during the morning, or night, and maybe once or twice in the afternoon. Family seemed to come first over May's party, which was rational. When he did come around Nate found himself having a hard time keeping focused on anything but the other teen, luckily no one picked up on it. Well, almost nobody.

One of the reasons Nate wasn't so achy over Brendan's absence was because he had a serious problem who caught onto his obsession over the white hatted teen.

The door only made a little sound as he pushed it open farther, he was glad that Brendan's parents went back to his father's gym that night, he probably would have been caught by now. When the door was opened wide enough he slipped out and gently shut it, he made sure to stay close to the shadows because the older teen could just simply turn around and spot him off the bat.

It was the day after the rain storm and just about everyone but him and a few others went to Lilycove City to shop. Nate would of joined everyone in the outing in a heartbeat, but unfortunately for him he woke up a little late mostly because getting up in time was now on his own watch.

He had settled for just watching TV in the nearly abandoned home when Ethan had plopped himself right down next to him.

"Sooooooooo," The golden eyed boy broke what Nate was hoping would be a quiet sitting. "Been getting friendly with any girls this trip?"

"Huh?"

"You know, sneaking a romance in? Holding hands with any girls? Or Boys. Or Brendan?"

"W-what! How- No! That's a weird thing to say. Why would I even-" He trailed off when he realized that he was rabbling.

"I saw you two hold hands the other night," He made a snide snicker before getting off the couch. "I kind of figured you were gay, I'm glad that I am right." He awkwardly paused for a moment. "Simply because I like to be right, not because I really care what your sexuality is. Well, see you later, I'm supposed to look for Pokemon with Lyra."

"Wait! No! It wasn't that kind of hand holding!" The brunette rocketed off the couch and grabbed Ethan's shoulder.

"Not that kind of hand holding?"

Nate glared at him for playing dumb, "He was just leading me somewhere- ah no! Shit, that sounds worse. There was nothing behind it though!"

He rested a hand on the smaller teens shoulder and gave him a soft look. "It's all right, I believe you."

"Um, r-really?"

"Nope. Lyra is going to love hearing about this!"

"No! Don't tell anyone! Please! He'll get mad at me!" He practically begged the Johto kid till his ears fell off.

With an irritated roll of the eyes, Ethan gave in. "Fine. I swear I won't tell anyone. Sheesh. Who else knows about you and your boyfriend?"

"Don't say it that! We are not a couple," He grimaced "And it's Just me and him. Oh and May. W-why?"

"So your really over protective manly friend doesn't know?" He gave him the grin of the devil, Nate instantly knew he didn't like where he was going.

"Um yea, he doesn't. Don't even think about telling him! He would react in the worse kind of way!" He hissed at Ethan, hoping that he would catch the venom in his voice.

"Relax, relax. I vowed not to tell anyone. Don't worry, I stick to my word." Nate felt himself calm down a bit.

"But,"

Oh shit.

"that doesn't mean I'm not going to have my fun with this. See you around."

So throughout the week Ethan proved what he had meant by 'having his fun with this'. It became clear to Nate that the golden eyed boy liked to push limits, he made it a game to see how many innuendos he could get away with before the brunette would have to cut him off with a desperate glare. Surprisingly no one caught on to the subtle hints and only took Ethan for a poor jokester

He was the worst when they were around Hugh, Ethan must of thought it was his divine mission to create suspicion in the blue haired teen.

The brunette swallowed as he watch Brendan disappear into the woods, the forest was far more darker than the gravel paved paths. If he were to get lost he probably wouldn't be able to find his way out till morning. His hesitation was only making thing worse as the White hatted teen got farther away, and in the darkness it was almost impossible to see him. Finally Nate threw himself among the pine trees and walked carefully.

Nate found himself hanging around Ethan more than he would of liked that week, no one was suspicious of it, instead they were assumed to becoming friends, even Hugh thought they were friends. They were not friends. No way in hell. What irked him the most was that Brendan thought they were friends.

It was just yesterday when he had woken up around the same time Brendan did, which was a rare occurrence now. The older teen was startled to see Nate already up and wandering in the hall way and even looked like he felt a bit awkward.

"Why are you even up? Don't you wake up around noon?" He almost sounded offended.

"Noise!" He pointed towards the window in his room and blushed "I-I mean I heard a loud noise. From outside. So I woke up. Just now."

"Yeah. Ok right." Brendan left him alone in the hallway before the brown eyed boy followed him, they had drifted apart during the week and for some reason it bothered Nate more than it should of.

"What have you been doing all week? With your parents?"

"Nothing fun." He thought the conversation would end there but then Brendan gave him a curious look. "Has your friend squeezed any of your limbs off yet?"

"hu-huh?"

He rolled his eyes, "Your arm! I'm asking about the bruises on your arm. Are they better?"

"Oh. Oh! Yes, gone. Completely." He felt his stomach flutter, was he worried about him?

"Pity. I noticed you got a new friend. Good for you." He seemed anything but happy for Nate.

"Who? Ethan?"

"Yeah. _Ethan_." His eyebrows pressed together at his name. "Nice to see you're able to make new friends."

"H-he's not my friend."

"THEN DON'T HANG AROUND HIM!" He yelled and then quickly covered his mouth in shock, it was strange seeing him with such an expression on his face.

Nate kept quiet but his eyes were wide and glued to Brendan, he never would have expected him to be the yelling type. Ever.

Brendan just swallowed his moment and passed by Nate like nothing happened. "See you later, I've got things to do."

The Unova boy tried his hardest to remain quiet but it was becoming more and more difficult, the deeper into the woods he got the more underbrush and twigs there were to step and make loud noises with.

He had decided a while ago that he was going to follow Brendan one of these days, however tonight was the first night that the inky haired boy left from home instead of leaving while he was already out.

There was a fast rustling sound, Nate stopped walking and whirled around. Something was running among the trees and kicking up pine needles in the air. After a couple minutes the sound disappeared, whatever it was lost interest and left. He gulped at the sudden realization that if he were to be attacked by a wild Pokemon he would be defenseless.

When he looked around for Brendan again he felt his heart drop when he couldn't find him. Did he go past the large rock? Or maybe it was around the fallen tree. The Unova boy decided to take the route with the rock. That sounded about right, but the more he walked the less it looked like Brendan had been this way.

His eye sight had adjusted to the darkness by now but there were still limitations to what he could see, that made it especially scary when he heard the snap of a branch behind him.

"Brendan?" He whispered, ready to blow his cover.

There was no reply, just low breathing and the occasional sound of running feat.

He gulped and tried to walk away slowly but the feat seemed to move along with every foot step he made.

There was another snapping of a branch. Then running feet. Soon there were a lot of sounds around him, branches, leaves, crackling, and panting.

Nate's head spun as he made an effort to find a safe place to run to, but all directions were full noise. A streak of grays flashed passed him as the Pokemon missed its aim and spared the brunette for a second longer. It was just enough time to run and that was what Nate did.

He didn't care to think much about the direction he was going now, it didn't matter, he just needed to get away.

The sounds of the Pokemon panting were close behind him. He only glanced back for a moment and instantly recognized the large canine to be the same kind him and Hugh saw the other day, and like the other day, this one wasn't alone.

He stumbled as his feet caught on to some roots, the pine forest was long behind him now, these trees were of a different kind, though not as tall they had a lot more foliage growing around them. If he could only somehow climb up one of the tree's, he could escape the wild Pokemon pack.

There was a yelp behind him, one of the Pokemon head butted the other on accident, buying him time to look for a tree. Almost all the tree's branches taunted his shortness, it took a precious moment for him to spot one with low enough branches.

He took a dive for it but instantly drew back when a pair of snapping jaws crashed in front of him. His heart raced and he screamed in surprise, he was desperate to get to the tree and save himself from being mauled by wild Pokemon.

The large creatures circled around him ready to attack the brunette. They had cut him off from the tree and salivated at the scent of the blood on his scraped knee's. In his last effort to survive his hand fell to his only Pokeball and threw it.

"Mienshao I need you!"

Nothing happened .

He lifted his arms to shield his face from the Pokemon as it launched itself at him. This was it, he was going to die in an unfamiliar region alone. Well at least he wasn't going to die as a virgin.

Suddenly there was a cool swoosh of air, a violent roar, and the synced sound of the Pokemon's yelps and whimpers.

"Are you ok- Damn it Nate! What the hell!"

He moved his arms and opened his eyes, he didn't remember shutting them. Brendan didn't give him time to admire his rescuer, he abruptly pulled him up by the arm just to slam him against a tree.

His flygon flew around in the sky way above them, that must have been what scared the Pokemon away.

"What are you doing out here!?" He growled and returned his flygon.

"I was- I- What are YOU doing out here!?"

"I asked you first! Why on earth would you come into the woods when you know you are defenseless?!" Brendan's red eye's pierced into Nate's own, sending shivers down his spine.

"I was following you!" He hissed back at him.

"What!? Why?"

"I-I was curious to where you were going every night! So I followed you."

He looked stunned that Nate admitted to it so easily, but his face returned to the grumpy frown he wore so well. "What's wrong with you!? This is my life! If I leave every night it doesn't give you the right to follow me!" His hands gripped the brunettes arms tightly, "And you could of gotten really hurt! Are you- Are you some sort of idiot!? Because I'm starting to think there is something really messed up about you!"

Nate stared at him, unsure what to say. He was right about, well everything to this date, and yet the brunette still pushed his limits with him. There was just this intense fascination he had with Brendan.

"I'm sorry." He finally mumbled.

Brendan let go of his arm and walked away for a moment. The younger teen watched as he bent down and picked up Nate's Pokeball. It looked as if he examined it before he returned it to his stalker.

"Why didn't it come out?" He asked.

Nate adverted his eye's.

"Whatever." The white hatted boy sighed, "Let's go."

"Um, we've been walking for a while now." Nate noted out loud.

"Yeah, and?"

"Well, shouldn't we be home by now?"

He thought he heard a chuckle from Brendan. "We're not going home."

"We're not? Where are we going?" He felt his heart pace quicken.

"We are at Mt. Pyre, you said you were curious to what I do every night."

Mt. Pyre? Where had he of that place before. His eyes lit up, "Oh! Ethan told me that there was a rumor that you go there every night!"

Brendan stiffened at Ethan's name. "Yep it's true." He grumbled "He's staying in Oldale I bet... Anyhow, I don't go here every night. Just once in a while."

They were looking at a large mountain on the other side of a river, Nate guess that was probably where they were going. It loomed over them and had an intense aura to it. There were smoky grey clouds that were illuminated by the moons rays, the whole place just reeked of shadiness.

"Oops, looks like there's a river in the way, let's go home." He spun around to leave but was pulled back by Brendan.

"Are you scared?" He smirked at him and released his flygon. "We'll just fly to the top from here."

"Nope! I don't fly. I'll fall off."

"You'll be fine." He climbed on top of his Pokemon and held out a hand to Nate and gave him a wink. "I'll hold on to you."

The brunette opened his mouth to protest but closed it again as he felt his face turn red. Was Brendan flirting with him, or mocking him? He grabbed the gloved hand and grunted when he was roughly pulled onto the Flygons back. Ok he was mocking, or maybe he was flirting, the teen decided when the elder's arm slid around him.

When the Pokemon took off he gasped in surprise at its force. The air that slapped against his face felt refreshing compared to the hot humid Hoenn weather. They were already almost at the summit of the mountain, Brendan pulled Nate closer to his body as the Flygon went faster.

Nate felt like his body was on fire every time Brendan changed his grip on him, when they finally got to the summit he had to pull his shirt down to hide himself from the other boy. Luckily Brendan didn't seem to notice, he just returned his Pokemon and started walking off.

"There are tombstones here…" He gulped.

"Yes, Mt. Pyre is a Pokemon Cemetery." His voice had a 'Duh' tone to it.

"Oh. What are we doing her-"

"You'll see, don't be impatient." He grabbed Nate's wrist and pulled him over to a patch of tombs, they looked really old and had weeds growing all over them. The taller boy kneeled to the ground and gestured Nate to do the same. "Pull." He commanded as he started uprooting the foliage.

"You come here at night to weed!?"

"Yes. Now pull." He rolled his eyes.

Nate obeyed him, it's been forever since he had been to a cemetery, the feeling he got and the memories that started to pour into his head were unwelcomed.

"Why do you do this?" He wanted to keep his mind from going dangerous places.

"Out of respect. I had to let a Pokemon go half a year ago and I noticed that this place was over grown, so I come here at night to help take care of it."

"Y-you had a Pokemon die?" Nate almost wailed.

"Y-yeah." He choked and gave the younger a smirk, "I'll show you his grave later."

They weeded in silence for a while, the brunette felt his heart beat towards the other teen, he had a Pokemon die. It wasn't like dead Pokemon got him off, he felt a connection to him now, Brendan now seemed more human to him than he did before.

"Why at night?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why do you do this at night? Why not during the day?"

Brendan paused his pulling and whispered into Nate's ear. "Because it's a secret. The old couple that live here don't know I do this every now and then." He pulled himself away and talked normally again, "Besides, it's more peaceful at night, it gives me time to think."

If the brunette didn't admire him before then he certainly did now, he pressed his forehead against his shoulder "You're amazing! That must make these people so happy!"

Although the Hoenn teen didn't say anything to that his eye's seemed to sparkle with happiness.

After they got done with that particular section they worked on two more before Brendan called it a night, or more like morning. He started grumbling, claiming they lost track of time, and if it were just him he would have gotten their work done much faster.

"Ok, let's go visit Aron."

Nate followed him down many steps to a large door that he had to use effort to push open, the grave in the inside of the mountain were all new looking, for some reason the brunette expected the tombs to be in just of bad of a condition as the ones outside.

They had to go up a couple flight of stairs before reaching the right floor, it was no surprise that they seemed to be the only people in the whole place, since it was the forsaken hours of the morning. There was one other person though, but she was on the floor below them so no one was bothering each other.

Brendan suddenly stopped without warning, causing Nate to bump into him.

"This is it. My Aron's grave. She was pretty young."

The tombstone was a cold slab of marble with multiple names and ID numbers of Pokemon, there must be several Pokemon buried in this spot. The brunette shifted uncomfortably at the thought of having to share a grave with several other people, it seemed disrespectful.

"Oh well, nothing will happen if we look at it, let's go." The ruby eyed teen shrugged tightly and prodded Nate to get him to move.

Once they were outside Brendan pulled out his flygon.

"Oh! The sun!" the younger beamed, The last time he saw the sunrise was when he was traveling Unova.

"Get on my Flygon if you want to cross the river dry," Brendan snapped.

"Ugh! You could stand to be a little nicer about it."

Nate wasn't too disappointed that he had to get on the Flygon though, the view was better in the sky anyways. This time around his eye's and thoughts were more focused on the horizon rather than the other teens hands.

"Why are we walking when we could just fly back?" Nate asked when Brendan returned his flygon.

"Because walking is healthier and better for the soul," He groaned.

"You sound like a hippy."

"You sound like a nuisance."

The sound of leaves crunched under their feet, this time Nate wasn't afraid of making noise, he felt safer now by Brendan's side, which was weird to him.

His heart began to beat faster now whenever he thought about the older teen, "M-my Pokemon," He began but when he saw that Brendan was more focused on getting home he dismissed it.

"I'm sorry what?"

"Nothing, never mind."

"No tell me."

He coughed awkwardly, "My um- My Pokemon, my Mienshao won't come out of its Pokeball. He's only came out twice in the last year."

Brendan's eyebrow raised, "Why is that?"

"I did something terrible a while back, really really bad. And I think he hasn't forgiven me for it."

"Why are you telling me? Why do you think I would care about this?"

Nate flinched, that stung him quite a bit, his voice turned from sweat to bitter, "Never mind!" He tried to speed up and away but the older boy caught him and pulled him back, he didn't put up a fight.

"I'm not saying I don't care. I just want to know why you are telling me this."

The brunette opened his mouth but closed it as soon as he met the ruby eyes. He couldn't do anything but blush, looked away, and mumbled under his breath. "I guess I just want to open up to you."

Brendan gave him a warm smile. "That's sweat of you, but don't think that just because you're opening up to me means I'm going to open up around you."

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**A/N:** Once again, sorry for the wait, hopefully I wont procrastinate as much for the next chapter.  
Btw just to put some fears to rest, I have this whole story outlined. If I don't update for about a week or two, don't worry about it, I will.  
If I don't update it for about a month, then you can worry, because it's likely I got really distracted. I give you permission to peer pressure me into updating if its been that long. Only if its been that long. Anyhow in case you're curious, this story is going to be about 15, 16, or 17 chapters long.

So now I'm going to take this moment to beg for reviews. Was that good enough? Good! I'm very pleased with the reviews I've been getting. Some of you I'm in love with already. ;)


	7. Just when you thought everything was ok

**A/N:** Shortish chapter, long name. I'm sure you guy will manage though its pretty smutty.

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Even though Brendan swore he wasn't going to open up to Nate, he still lighten up around him, well he was still a jerk, but that wasn't going to change in a few minutes. By the time the two teens got back to Littleroot the other trainers were already awake and at May's. They both agreed it would be too suspicious if they both went straight to the older teens house to sleep rather than spending time with the other kids, especially since Hugh had already spotted them slugging themselves out of the woods.

"Where were you two? Why were you in the woods?" The blue haired trainer looked stunned.

Nate felt his heart quicken as he was at lost for words but felt relieved when Brendan saved the day, or maybe even two days by speaking up.

"We went looking for his trainer card," The ruby eyed teen took a pause to study Hugh's face. "You remember his trainer card was lost right? You should, after making that huge scene with him."

Hugh glared over at Brendan and snorted, Nate was thankful he ignored him rather than starting a fight. "So did you find it?"

"Uh, yeah. It took us a while but we eventually found it." He laughed nervously

His friend sighed and smiled.

It was expected for Brendan to leave Nate alone for the rest of the day like he always did, so it put the brunette on edge when he noticed the Hoenn trainer stuck by his side like a body guard or even, he dared to think, a friend. The plan for the afternoon was to go swimming in a nearby lake, which sounded like a dream since it hot enough to fry an egg outside.

When the group got to the lake naturally everyone was excited, some of the trainers pulled out their Pokemon others rough housed.

"Hilda, you know the whole point of going swimming is to actually swim right?" Green groaned at the princess like girl, she rolled her eyes and turned away from him in response, Nate was positive that he had never seen her swim.

The brown eyed teen himself only had his ankles in the water as his legs hanged over a dock, Brendan was near him in the water complaining about all the awful things that could be in it.

"Aw! Look at you two! How cute."

Nate jumped and almost fell in the lake in surprise at Ethans voice.

"I heard you guys were in the forest alllllllll night." The golden eyed asshole smiled like it was the most scandalous thing in the world.

"Yeah. So what?" Brendan sneered, "Don't you have some swimming to do?"

"Of course I have swimming to do, I just wanted to come over here to check up on Nate." He lowered his body so he was eye to eye with the other teen, his voice turned quiet but was still loud enough so Brendan could hear it. "You must be soooo tired, no wonder you're not swimming."

Nate could of sworn he saw Brendan's ink black hair bristle, "What's that supposed to mean!?"

"Nothing lover boy, it's something between me and Nate." He gave him a pretty Wink before waving into the distance, "Looks like Lyra wants me. See you two later. Keep your hands to yourself."

Brendan waited till Ethan was out of earshot before leaping up onto the dock and giving Nate a stern look. "You have some explaining to do because I'm not sure who I need to punch right now." His hand firmly, but not roughly, gripped the other boy's hand and he pierced him with irritated eyes. It seemed like every time they got on good terms with each other something always happened that made them uneasy.

The brunette looked around to see if anyone else was watching them, everyone was busy. "Um…" He stopped there and allowed a chill spread through his body, how was he supposed to explain this? Did Ethan mean to push limits with Brendan or was he just plain stupid? "Well… to be honest Ethan kind of knows…"

He turned his face away but Brendan immediately grabbed under his chin with his free hand. "What does Ethan kind of know?" His voice was harsh and hinted at a bit of fear.

"He knows that we-"

"Hey Nate!" Hugh's voice broke their conversation and caused Brendan to abruptly pull away from the younger teen and back jump into the water.

The tall Unova teen made the boards on the dock shake with his heavy steps, Nate glanced at him to see if he saw the suggestive position him and the other boy were in. Luckily Hugh must of not have seen it, or didn't think much of it.

"Since you're not swimming do you mind taking my Xtransceiver for me? I don't want it to get wet." He dug his hand into his pocket and handed off the device to the nodding teen. "Thanks. Oh and if it's not too much to ask, I left my Pokemon at May's and I want to bring Samurott out. Could you go get him?"

"Sure I gue-"

"Why can't you just go get your own damn Pokemon? I don't see any reason to bully your friend into doing it." Brendan hissed.

"He doesn't bully me!" Nate slapped the water with his feet. Damn it! Couldn't they go one day without some sort of argument?

"What do you care?" Hugh joined in to his defense.

"I was in the middle of a conversation with him!" A few of the other trainers looked at them.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Nate groaned off to the side.

"Conversation or teasing him? He doesn't need a jackass in his life right now!"

"That's funny, then why are you friends with him?" Brendan growled and lifted himself out of the water to challenge Hugh.

Nate grumbled and walked down the dock past Hugh and Brendan, they could fight all they wanted for all he cared, he was just gonna get the Pokemon anyways.

"Hey wait a minute!" Brendan shoved Hugh out of the way and caused him to fall into the Lake, one person gasped but then giggled. "Don't think you can just walk away from our conversation."

The brunette sped up, "that wasn't a conversation, that was you two fighting." He replied flatly and winced as his bare feet started to walk on gravel.

"You know what I meant." Brendan also winced as he followed the brunette across a path.

The Hoenn teen dropped the subject till they got back to May's house, he waited till the brunette had found Hugh's Pokeballs before he asked him about Ethan again.

When Nate reached for the door handle Brendan pulled him back and pinned his wrists to the wall. "Tell me what Ethan knows." He glared.

"He knows that we… that we did stuff."

"What!? Why did you tell him!?" Brendan tightened his grip.  
"I didn't tell him!"

"Then how does he know!?"

"He saw us hold hands and just kind of assumed the rest!"

"We weren't holding hands! I was taking you home with me- Shit that sounds worse." He cursed under his breath but Nate couldn't help but smile, that what he told Ethan. The older teens hands released Nate's wrist's. "Has he told anyone?"

"No, I made him swear not to tell anyone,"

"Good! The last thing I need people knowing is I'm gay." He glanced over at Nate's worried expression. "and The second to last thing I need people to know is that I slept with you!"

The brunette felt a stab in his heart but it was instantly gone when Brendan caressed his cheek and smiled at him.

"I'm kidding Nate, don't look at me that way." He got serious again, "Then what was the deal with him today? Was he trying to piss me off or-" He gave a small worried gasp, "Has he been teasing you like that around other people too?"

The Unova teen nodded and almost felt ashamed for doing so, was he going to hurt Ethan? Even though Brendan was aggressive Nate somehow doubted that he would actually beat someone up. He wouldn't do that right? Still, it felt good that something wasn't his fault for once.

Evening was drawing in and Brendan seemed to pick up on the fact that Nate yawned for the hundredth time as they walked back towards May's house.

"May, we're calling it in for the night since we were up all last night." He brushed past May who nodded and nudged Nate's back towards his house.

The brunette gave him a questioning glance but obeyed his gentle pushes. He didn't speak up till they were out of view from everyone, including Ethan who was sporting a new busted lip, claimed he accidentally swam into the dock. Yeah right.

"You've been unusually nice to me today." He noted as they walked up the stairs. "Why?"

Brendan shrugged and smirked, "Probably because I'm about to ask you for something that's not so nice." He opened his door and gestured for Nate to go into his room instead of the guest room.

The younger gulped but didn't say anything even when the red eyed teen locked the door.

"Get on the bed."

"W-what? Why?"

"Take a wild guess." Their eye's met and Nate recognized the same lustful look the last two times Brendan had been drinking, of course though he knew that there was no alcohol involved this time.

The older teen pushed the Unova boy down onto the bed and on his back, he grunted in defeat when Nate gave him a dumbfounded look. "Do I have to spell it out to you? I want to have sex." His hands tried to separate Nate's knee's but fell to his sides when the brunette turned his body away from him.

"But-but why again?"

He didn't give up on pursuing him and tried flipping him back over, "I don't know, I've been thinking about it ever since last night on my flygon, it felt nice touching you."

Nate gave a little gasp, he thought he was the only one! He suddenly got a bitter thought "So you've been nice to me this whole day just so you can have sex with me later?"

"Maybe. Or it might be because I think you're a little cute." He smiled at his quick save when he realized that it did it for Nate. The smaller teen allowed him to run his hand over his body slowly as he looked down at him.

The brown eyed boy blinked quietly as the elder touched and squeezed him with his rough hands, he gave a little gasp as his hand grazed his thigh and hit something hard. "What the?" Brendan squeezed the object in Nate's pocket. "Do you still have Hugh's Xtransceiver?"

"Y-yeeeah. Just ignore it, I'll give it to him in the morning."

His shirt was lifted up as Brendan's lips started to suck on one of his nipples, he couldn't help but make a little bit of noise to this. He could feel the darker haired teen's tongue flick over the sensitive bud and his hands continuing to slowly feel him up. Eventually his mouth moved farther down Nate's chest leaving a trail of red markings, the farther he got down the more his hands moved to his rump, spreading and pushing them together.

This was different from the first time. The first time it seemed to be more straight forward getting the job done, whereas this time the older teen seemed to be working on making it pleasurable for the both of them.

Brendan had hooked the hem of Nate's shorts and started to slide them down. Nate wanted him to touch his dick but the other boy seemed as if he was avoiding it, he gave a final rather large hickey right above groin before pulling his head away.

"Why'd you stop?" He whined.

"Don't worry about it." Brendan smiled as he took off his own shirt and pants.

Nate's eye enlarged when the other teen sat him up and pulled him against his chest, his hips grinded into him as his teeth gently bit the others neck.

"You're very very hard." He purred into his ear and ran a hand down his nearly naked leg.

"Y-you are too." The Unova boy quickly covered himself with his hands as Brendan pulled down his boxers.

"I'm not going to laugh at it again, promise."

"that's what you said last time and you still did it!" He hissed. He tried to fight off his submissive behavior of parting his legs when Brendan's hands got closer to his member, but he lost as the rough hand ran over it. It wasn't a lie when he agree that Brendan was also hard, he could feel him pressing into his lower back with much eagerness.

The ruby eyed teen rubbed his dick and nuzzled his neck, Nate could feel his lips curl against his skin every time he squirmed under the older boy's touch. He felt like he was getting drunk off of Brendan's spicy scent and couldn't help himself from pressing into the other body.

"Don't forget what I want you to do this time." Brendan smirked when he pulled himself away from Nate to get the lube.

The brunette responded with a slightly confused look.

"I don't want you to hold back on noises. Remember? We had that talk?"

Nate's eye's lightened up, for some reason because the other teen had been drinking he assumed that he didn't remember the conversation. "I'll try not to…"

He rolled over onto his belly and looked around the room, it had been a while since he had last been in there, everything was still tidy as ever, the only things out of place were their clothes and bags on the floor. Something jutted out of Brendan's bag, it was the notebook that Nate snooped through, he noted that he'd have to ask about that later. Or not.

"OW! Why'd you pinch me!?"

"You seemed distracted," Brendan hovered over the brunette and lightly licked the tip of his ear.

"Wha!" Nate instantly turned over in shock, his body grew even more hot when saw how close Brendan's nearly naked body was to his.

A few minutes and playful bites later Nate stood true to his word and didn't hold back on the moans, it wasn't excessive but he was defiantly vocal about Brendan's rougher side. A couple times though he did feel embarrass and tried to muffle his mouth by burying his face into the sheets or clenching his jaw, the other teen would respond in either pulling his head back by the hair, or stopping till Nate would open his mouth again.

"Why do you like noise so much?" He hissed at the teen behind him.

Brendan wrapped his hand around him to rub him off while he thrust himself into Nate. "I think it's hot." He shrugged.

"ugh."

The farther they got along the harder Brendan pushed, the Unova boy's arm, which were hold him up, gave out and he dropped to his elbows, and then his chest, he listened to Brendan and still made noise even though it embarrassed the hell out of him. At one point a finger found its way into his mouth and he accidentally bit it, causing the older teen to stop and curse at the world for a moment.

They got back at it instantly and just when Nate was about to release himself he heard a clicking noise. Panic flooded over him as he heard a door open in the distance.

"Brendan stop."

The other teen didn't think much of it.

"Brendan stop! BRENDAN SERIOUSLY STOP!" He mustered up what he could and kicked the other teen in the thigh hard.

The Hoenn boy stumbled off the bed and grabbed his thigh, causing Nate to grunt in pain from pulling out so fast "Ow! What the fuck!?" Brendan spat between his teeth and then froze when he heard the door in the distance shut. "Um…" Was all what his now very pale face could say.

"I think whoever it was left."

"I'm going downstairs to check." He gulped.

Nate grimaced, "Or you could just stay up here. With me. If that's not too much to ask."

"We can continue later." He patted Nate's belly, "If it was May then we are good, if it was my Mom, its ok, but we're in trouble if that was my dad."

Brendan hurriedly put his clothes on and tried to rush out the door calmly.

The brunette sat there naked for a moment before deciding to put his boxer's on. When he reached over the side of the bed to grab them his eyes were drawn to Brendan's bag and the notebook. Should he? Would he have enough time? He popped his head out the door, Brendan was nowhere to be seen.

The journal crackled when he opened it, he couldn't help but be consumed by fear, the owner could come barging through the door any minute now and he'd be in serious trouble.

_'Journal 6__, __November 8__th__:  
In continuation to the last 5 journals I still have had no luck finding any of those stones my dad talked about, part of me wonders if he just made it up to get me away from Brendan. I love the kid but I do feel guilty about this whole relationship, and I'm sure there's a lot of shame from my family.'_

Nate's stomach began to turn sharply, this was Stevens journal… He glanced over at the picture and felt himself almost lurch. Did Steven and Brendan date? How old was Steven? He looked way too old for Brendan!

"I think it was May."

Nate slammed the journal shut, shoved it back in Brendan's bag and scurried back to the bed.

"You're still naked." Brendan smirked at him and climbed over to him. "Want to start where we left off?"

The Unova boy was about to say something but when he made eye contact with the sultry teen he felt an overwhelming amount of emotions and an uncomfortable tug in the back of his throat. He shot off the bed and slammed open the bathroom door before hunkering down over the toilet.

"Holy shit- Are you? Are you ok!?"

"Does it look like I'm ok?!" He snapped after losing that night's dinner.

Brendan was a little lost for words, "I guess not… I'm going to go get something for you. Stay there."

"Where the hell would I go anyways?" Nate muttered to himself and leaned his head against the toilet. He was disgusted, sad, and angry all at the same time. It wasn't for sure that Brendan dated an older man, but it sure as hell started to look like it, it was gross, and it pissed him off that Brendan didn't tell him when he asked. Of course it wasn't like Brendan had to tell him, and he made that clear, but there was still that sting in his heart that wanted the other teen to trust him enough to tell him. The worst part was the fact that he wanted it to be him that Brendan dated.

His eye's widened at that thought. He liked Brendan, he DID have a crush on him, and he was jealous of someone who wasn't even around.

"Here," the white hatted teen handed Nate a tablet, "It will make your stomach feel better." He grabbed the brunette's arm and led him to the bed.

They sat there in silence, Brendan was examining his hand and Nate was trying to collect his thoughts.

"I can't believe you bit me…"

"You bit me too! Multiple times," Nate defended his actions.

"Yeah those were supposed to be sexy. You just fucking chomped down on my finger." He groaned and pulled the younger teen closer to him. "Feel better."

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**A/N:** I'm bad at fluff. Expect some more tension soon. Actually I'm very excited to post the next chapter, I might get it done faster than usual.  
Might.


	8. Stay away from him

May slammed the door open as hard as she could and took a step back in embarrassment when she saw the two teens in bed together. She narrowed her eyes at Nate in pure venom and snorted.

"Seriously, could you at least put some clothes on?"

"May ever heard of knocking!?" Brendan snapped before Nate could get a word in.

She looked over her shoulder, guarding the door frame before whispering, "I'd hop out of bed if I were you two. Your mom is here and so is…" She paused to give Brendan eye contact so he knew just how serious this was, "And so is everyone else."

"What!?" The older teen shot out of bed, grabbed Nate's clothes, and threw them at him. "Please tell me this is a joke. Why are they here- Oh my Arceus… It was my mom wasn't it?"

The brown haired girl awkwardly nodded as Nate pulled his shirt over his head, he stayed in bed though, no way was he going to expose his manly parts to this bitch.

"She came over to my house and insisted she make pancakes for everyone. And you know her, the ingredients in my house might be poisons and she doesn't trust my stove. So now everyone is here."

"I told her not to let strangers over!" He groaned

"She thinks they are all your little friends, so to her, they aren't strangers."

"Ugh. Whatever, leave us so we can change. We'll be down in a minute. Don't let anyone up."

Nate waited for the girl to leave before sliding his boxers and shorts on, thank the legendries that it was only May who came up stairs and no one else.

"Are you feeling any better? You're not going to throw up in everyone's food are you?" Brendan teased, he sincerely thought Nate was sick and was ready for him to let everything go again.

"I'm fine," he mumbled.

When the duo got downstairs Nate was greeted by the savoring smell of pancakes and bacon.

"Oh! Good morning darlings! I made you guys breakfast." Brendan's mom gleefully smiled.

"Yeah, I can see that mom, you also made it for everyone else." The white hatted teen snorted.

Everyone was there, thankfully they all seemed too involved with the food to pay much attention to anything else. Nate took a good look around the overcrowded kitchen, everyone was sectioned off in their own groups. Hilbert, Bianca, and the Sinnoh kids all took claim of the only table, while Hilda sat ON the table, he was surprised that Brendan's mom hadn't asked her to get off yet. Next to her were May, Red, and Green, who was eating toast rather than pancakes. Finally his eye's stopped at Rosa, Lyra, Ethan, who was adopted into their group ever since he had begun teasing Nate, and Hugh, who waved him over.

"How's it going Natey?" Ethan parted his busted lips and flashed him a stupid looking grin just as he sat down.

"Don't call me that." He responded flatly. The brunette wanted to make it clear to the others now that Ethan and him were not friends.

"Geez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Speaking of which, were you and-" He stopped midsentence and stared over Nate's shoulder with a horrified expression.

"What was that?" Brendan narrowed his eyes at the Johto kid.

"Nothing."

"Yeah, it better be nothing." His face turned from threatening to gentle as he turned his attention to Nate. "Here, I got you a plate. Don't throw it up."

"T-thankyou." He struggled hard trying not to blush at Brendan's gesture of kindness and had to force himself to peel his eyes off the teen when he walked away to his own friend.

"Don't throw it up?" Hugh repeated in confusion.

"Uh yeah, I er, threw up last night." Nate picked at the pancakes, he wasn't really that hungry, his mind and stomach were elsewhere.

"Are you ok?" His friend's hand swiped across his forehead. "You do feel kind of hot. And your face is a little red."

'_That's because of someone else.'_ The brunette answered back in his head.

Rosa and Hugh started talking about his plans on ways to get another battle with Green without making it obvious that Hugh was still butt hurt about their tournament battle.

The Unova teen meanwhile was making plans of his own, gazing dumbly at Brendan. Now that he knew that he had a crush on the other boy, what was he supposed to do next? Telling him seemed out of the question, to be honest, he was positive that Brendan would tell him to give up on it, or that he was just confused.

"Nate. NATE! Earth to Nate!" Hugh waved his hand in front of his face.

"I, uh, what?"

"I asked if I could have my Xtransceiver back." The blue haired teen chuckled at his spacey-ness .

Nate patted his shorts and gave his friend a twisted face, "It must of fallen out of my shorts upstairs. I'll go look for it."

He managed to get himself free from the cramped kitchen without drawing much attention to himself, and was almost up the stairs before he heard Hugh call over to him.

"Wait, let me look with you." He then adverted his eyes, "I actually have a question, a really awkward question I need to ask you."

Nate's heart palpitated, what kind of question? An awkward one? That could mean anything! Did Hugh know something? Oh shit he had to know something! "Oh-um. Sure."

Hugh didn't ask anything till they were in Brendan's room but when he did it caught Nate off guard. "Does Brendan have a girlfriend?"

The shorter teen's eye's widened, "What? No! I mean, I don't know, he might. I never asked, its none of my business to know anything like that. Why?"

His friend gave him an odd look before looking away. "Ok, this is awkward. But May told me I could just walk in last night and ask you for my Xtransceiver,"

Nate almost hurled. Hugh was the one who came over last night!

"And when I did, I'm pretty sure I heard him having sex. Actually I'm one hundred percent sure that what I heard was sex. There were moans from a girl and everything. So I just left."

Moans from a girl… '_Well fuck you Hugh.' _He had to think of a quick response. "Ooooooooh. That? Yeah. Now that you mentioned it. I um. I guess I have seen him hang out with a couple girls." He lied and pretended to look for the Xtransciever. "I was- I was pretty out knocked out last night, hahaha." He awkwardly shuffled, his eye's accidentally landed on Brendan's bag with the notebook. Even though reading it last night had upset him greatly, he HAD to read more.

Hugh was now helping him look, which gave Nate the opportunity to slip his hand into the bag and pull out Steven's journal. Thinking for a bit, he decided to flip towards the end.

_April 21__st__,_

_I gave Brendan a present today, an Aron I bred myself. To most people they would see it as a sweet gesture, but he saw right through it, even though he didn't say anything I could see the joy fade from his eyes. He knows that I leaving. I'm a coward for running away from my problems, I know this-_

"Found it!" Hugh cheered. "Ok let's go finish breakfast."

Nate stood up and stretched his arms up high, the bottom of his shirt lifted up and exposed his belly. When he opened his eye's Hugh's happiness was drained from his face.

"N-nate?" He whispered to him like he was an injured Pokemon.

"Uh?"

"Have you been hurt? Has someone been beating you? Was it Brendan?"

"What? Wait, what are you talking about?"

Hugh grabbed the bottom of his shirt and lifted it up, startling Nate who dropped the journal. "Don't try to hide the bruises they're all over- wait a minute…" He slapped his hand over his mouth and darted his eye's around the room. "This- this is Brendan's room!" He announced. "Why are we in Brendans room?"

It took Nate a moment to realized what he was getting at, his world then turned cold. He could see the concern in Hugh's eye's turn to anger and in that moment he knew it was all over.

"HE! HE!" His breaths were quick, "THAT MOTHER FUCKER!" Hugh threw the door open, Nate tried to grab him but the other boy easily pulled himself out of his grip.

The brunette had no choice but to chase him down the stairs. "NO, NO, NO, NO! Hugh! Please stop! Don't do anything." He knew it was a doomed cause though, he considered pulling the 'but daddy I love him card,' But that would likely just make things worse.

He almost wished he hadn't followed Hugh into the kitchen. Brendan was leaning against the kitchen counter talking with one of the Sinnoh kids before Hugh grabbed the back of his neck and smashed his face into the wall.

"YOU FAGGOT ASS HOLE! YOU FUCKED MY BESTFRIEND!"

Everyone in the room dropped what they were eating. May and the Brendan's Mom shrieked. Brendan looked over at Nate with pure hatred.

"You told him!"

"DON'T BLAME ANY OF THIS ON HIM! I SAW THE EVIDENCE ON HIS BODY!"

The brunette's eyes started to burn as his vision became blurry, "Hugh no! Stop it!" He couldn't think straight, he couldn't come up with a proper argument for Brendan's defense, he couldn't see anything but the look that Brendan gave him. The hurt and hatred in his eyes.

Instead of denying it or fighting Hugh back, Brendan glared at him and smirked.

"He wanted it!"

But that only set the taller teen more as he proceeded to re-slam his head into the wall.

"DON'T! EVER! TOUCH! NATE! AGAIN! YOU PERVERTED HOMO-"

SMACK!

Hugh stumbled back, releasing his grip on the ruby eyed teen. His nose bled a thick line of blood as May flexed her fist.

"Leave, or I'll call the police." She looked like she wouldn't mind hitting him again but held a good restraint on herself.

Hugh spat a mouthful of colorful words before picking himself up and heading out the door, Rosa glanced between him and Nate before following the bleeding teen out the door.

Brendan pushed himself off the wall, a stream of red flowing from his forehead made its way to his jaw. He look around at everyone's gaping mouth before cursing. "What are you all looking at!? Go home! Or back to May's. Show's over."

As the other trainers awkwardly pooled out of the lodge themed home May turned her fury to Nate who silently let tears pour down his face.

"You should leave too!" She hissed, clearly she blamed this on him just as much she blamed it on Hugh.

"No, Nate. You can stay here." The Hoenn boy said roughly, and walked over to him to wipe his tears away.

"Oh- oh my," Brendan's mom voice faltered, "I'm- I'm going to call your father."

"Why do you want him to stay!?" May snapped at him, "He practically got you beaten up! We should send him and his friends back to Unova!"

"No! Hugh was the one who beat me up, Nate just watched and cried." He sneered at her, the way he said it though told the brunette that he was still deciding whether he was really ok with Nate right now or not.

"He told Hugh! Who just told everyone must I remind you!"

"I'm-I'm just going to- I'm leaving." Nate pushed past them and out the door before he could get a response out of them.

Outside was a different kind of atmosphere, the other trainers stared at him is disbelief, half were probably trying to figure out if he should be to blamed for this, and the other half were trying to comprehend his "relationship" with Brendan.

Hugh looked over his shoulder and wiped his nose, his eye's softened up when he saw Nate's tear stained face and attempted to approach him but was given the cold shoulder.

"I don't want to talk to you right now." But he did want to seek comfort, just not with Hugh.

It was assumed that even though Brendan didn't kick him out of his house, May would want him nowhere near hers, so he took the path to Oldale and slowly walked it.

After a couple moments of walking around aimlessly he squat down and began to cry again. It all happened so fast and suddenly that he didn't know where to collect his thoughts. Did Brendan hate him now? Because he offered him to stay but he still sounded piss. His face flushed at the thought of the other teens kindness last night and this morning, and then his heart shattered all over again when he rewound his thoughts back to the look of hatred Brendan gave him.

A hand gently stroked his back and he winced away.

"I said I didn't want to talk to you Hugh!"

"Not Hugh. Rosa." Damn! Sometimes her hands can feel like a man's. She continued rubbing his back but maintained a good distance. She wasn't one for being all touchy feely. "Are you going to be ok?"

"No! Hugh fucking attacked Brendan! And now he hates me because Hugh found out about us because of me! Everyone found out! And he was bleeding. And-and Hugh was bleeding. And they're probably gonna send us home! And I'll never see Brendan again!" He shielded his face away in his knees.

She was silent for a while and just let him deal with his own thoughts and calm down. When he lifted his head up she smiled at him.

"Did you really like him?"

"No!"

"Don't lie."

"Yes. A little more than I thought. I kind of- I kind of just realized I had a crush on him last night though." He looked away in embarrassment, he was such an amateur to this whole liking someone thing.

Her face twisted. "And you had sex right after you realized that?"  
"No. We had sex before that. Well kind of, we never finished because we heard Hugh come into his house. Does that still count as sex? If he doesn't ejaculate into me does that still count?" He blushed when he met her slightly disturbed face. "Sorry, that was a little too much information."

"I um. I think it still counts." She laughed nervously. "Was that the only time you two did it?"

"No," He admitted, "We did it the first night we got here."

Rosa gasped and started laughing, "That's why you were 'not feeling well', that first night."

"Shut up Rosa. This is serious." He muttered under his breath.

"I wouldn't tell Hugh that if I were you."

"Hugh… Is he mad at me too? Or just Brendan?"

"Just Brendan. He seems to think you are a victim here. When I talked to him he said stuff that hinted towards him thinking Brendan manipulated you, or forced you into it." She rolled her eyes. "You know how he is."

"Ugh! I'm not twelve! I know how to handle myself!"

"I know you do but Hugh doesn't. He is afraid you can't defend yourself, ever since the accident-"

"Don't." Nate hissed her a quick reminder.

She lifted her hands in defense, "I'm not going there, don't worry. I tried telling Hugh that if kept you staying over there night after night, you probably wanted it."

"Uuuugh. I'm sure that went smoothly with him," He groaned sarcastically and placed his face back into his knees.

"Haha, it didn't. He refuses to believe that you would actually want to do stuff with Brendan. Which is kind of a good thing, at least he's not homophobic. He just hate's Brendan."

"Yeah I guess that's just peachy."

"Look on the bright side, at least you and Brendan don't have to hide it anymore." He gave him a playful shove. "You guys didn't tell anyone else right?"

"I didn't, he told me I couldn't tell a soul. But he told May, and Ethan found out on his own."

"Ethan knew? Oh. OOOOOOHHHHH! I get some of his jokes now."

Nate flashed her a look.

Everyone called it in early that day, and for the first time since they arrived in Hoenn Nate went to Odale with Rosa and Hugh. Hugh made his attempts to talk to Nate but he wasn't having it. The shorter teen glared at him and ignored every word that came out of the blue haired boy's mouth, which frustrated the teen.

Even at night when they shared a bed together the brunette slept on the very edge of the mattress. Which he would of done any way's if the whole incident didn't happen that morning, they weren't lying when they said the air conditioning was broken.

"Go back to Oldale," May hissed at Nate as soon as him and Rosa arrived that morning, Hugh had enough smarts to know when he should stay behind.

"He didn't do anything." Rosa glared at her and to the Unova boy's surprise May backed down from her.

Throughout the day people seemed to forget about yesterday's incident, and Nate was almost able to let it escape his mind for just a little when Green waltzed over to him, along followed Ethan, Lyra, and Hilda.

"So you and Brendan huh?" Green snickered.

Nate didn't say anything, he just shyly looked away.

"No way! You guys really had sex!?"

Ethan curled an arm around the brown eyed boy's shoulder, he wasn't sure if that was to keep him in place or to comfort him.

Hilda looked around and then whispered in a low voice, "How does that like… work?"

"Ew! Hilda don't ask him that." Green pretended to gag.

Nate bit his lip, he didn't want to be here right now.

"Aw, don't tease him guy's, look how sensitive he is right now." Ethan smirked.

They ignored him though. "How long have you guy's been doing it?" Hilda's eye's widened as he scanned the room, she seemed to want to keep her interest a secret.

"I have to-"

"A while actually, I found out last week," Nate tried to free himself but Ethan kept him still.

Hilda narrowed her eye's at Nate. "You told HIM but you didn't tell me?"

"He didn't tell me, I found out on my own." The golden eyed teen seemed to be glad to be off the hook now, he didn't need to keep the secret for the brunette anymore and now he was allowed to push limits as much as he wanted, especially since Brendan was nowhere to be seen.

"How?" Green persisted. Was this breaking news or something? Everyone just needed to lay off.

Lyra snorted, "He probably knew what to look for, he's been with plenty of guy's befo-"

"LYRA!" Ethan wailed and clapped his hand over her mouth, "That's something we keep to ourselves."

Nate couldn't help himself from gaping. Ethan was gay? This whole time? What the hell! He had to break away from his astonishment when he felt his Xtransceiver vibrate.

There was a text from an unknown number.

_'Come over. NOW'_

He glanced around awkwardly and responded back.

_'Who is this?'_

It took a couple moments for a reply.

_'What are you dense? It's Brendan, who else would tell you to come over?'_

When did Brendan get his number? He never told it to anyone. He shrugged the questions aside and slipped outside of the house. The breeze felt refreshing against his sticky skin and the water droplets on the grass felt even better.

His heat pounded when he thought of Brendan, why did he want him over? The brunette couldn't control himself from becoming hopeful, maybe he was going to apologize for May, or what if he just simply wanted to spend time with him.

The door opened before he had a change to touch it, Brendan's father scowled at the teen before shoving past him. His eye's looked frightening and for a moment it looked like he thinking about telling the kid off, but he pulled himself away exhaustedly.

Nate could feel his heart drop again, maybe this wasn't such a good meeting after all.

"Hello Nate." Brendan's mom gave him a weak smile, "Brendan is upstairs."

"Th-thanks," He whimpered.

He walked up stairs and knocked before entering, when the ruby eyed teen told him to come in Nate couldn't look at him at first.

Brendan drew in a heavy breath before letting out a sigh, he placed a single finger under Nate's chin and turned his head so he would face him. A cut now replaced the blood on his fore head, on the side of his cheek was a bruise which looked suspicious.

"Nate, I think you should go home."

The Unova boy's eye's fell down in disappointment as he noticed the journal in Brendan's hand.

* * *

**A/N: **I left you with a cliff hanger because I'm evil.  
Also something else that might make me slightly even more evil, is that it might take a little bit longer for the next chapter, simply because I'm working on a Longshot-oneshot at the moment also. Which I suggest you check out after I upload it, its, um... humorous.  
Dirty, but humorous. I think. I don't know, I'm the kind of person who laughs at my own jokes when they probably aren't even funny.


	9. Pestering

**A/N: **Sorry this took so long to update, I met this horrible group of people who became my friends and they took up all my time.  
This chapter is a little different from the previous ones, and it wont be the only one like this. We are going to jump into Brendan's POV a little bit.

* * *

"I'm sorry!" He began to bawl, dang it. Nate was sure that he was beginning to come across as a crybaby to Brendan now, "I didn't mean to look!"

The older teen furrowed his dark brows and bit the inside of his lip in self-restraint, if he wasn't angry before he was now.

"How do you 'mean not to look?' How does someone do that? You physically pulled it out of the bag, and looked. You meant it. Don't lie to me."

"I just- I just wanted to know things about you!"

"Well this journal isn't about me! It's not mine, and it's not yours to look at!" He turned away from the crying teen and threw the journal in his sink.

"Wait! What are you doing?!" Nate grabbed Brendan's arm just in time to stop him from turning on the faucet.

"There was a reason the journal was hidden behind my books! There was a reason I got mad at you for looking at it the first time! Why did you think I wouldn't get mad again!? I hate this journal! I didn't want to be reminded of it! I don't want to see this journal anymore! Let go of my arm!" He didn't wait for the brunette to let go willingly, he threw the trainer off him and turned on the water.

"I'm sorr-"

"No you're not!" He turned around and slapped Nate.

The teen held up his hand to his stinging cheek.

"If you were sorry you wouldn't have snooped again. I don't trust you! You're just a worm who act's meek and cute, and for some reason you think that if people feel sorry for you it gives you the right to intrude on their personal business."

Nate felt the very familiar sick feeling in his stomach from two nights ago, if he threw up though it would only make everything worse, so he did his best to keep his mind off his stomach.

There was a ripping sound and then suddenly the older trainer pushed the Unova boy out of the way to flush the remains of the journal. He knew that now wasn't the time to say anything, all he could do was watch Brendan get rid of Steven's diary chunk by chunk.

"Now go home," he his ruby eye's, was he crying? "I don't want to see you again."

A week and a Half would be the day everyone left anyways, that was when the Unova's kid's flight was scheduled and plane tickets were expensive , so Nate and Hugh were just going to stay in Oldale till the time to leave comes. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the Unova kids to pack of early because of them, Nate knew Hilda had a fit when she thought they'd have to go back early. Even though it was only Nate and Hugh who were banded from May's party, the Unova kid's got a special deal on their tickets, but it required all of them to be present when on flight.

It was boring being stuck in Oldale all the time, especially since Nate was still giving Hugh the silent treatment, so it wasn't like he had anyone to talk to. Of course Hugh did what he could to try to get Nate to speak up but eventually he retreated into the hallway to give his mom a call. Maybe he should try giving his own mother call? Nah, she worries too much especially after the… thing. Besides, if she knew what happened she would take her personal time just to fly out and get him.

It had been a couple day's actually since the whole incident at Brendan's house, the only things that kept Nate sane was the TV and the occasional visits from Ethan.

At first the Johto kid was unwelcomed and the brunette had even broken his vow in not talking to Hugh to tell him that Ethan was bothering him, even in a fight Hugh was still protective over his best friend and gladly showed Ethan the way out.

After about the fourth visit Nate started looking forward to the other teen's visit as much as he looked forward to being stung by a Beedrill, it was still improvement at least.

"What I don't get is why you even like that asshole. He slapped you in the face and all you can do is mope about not seeing him."

"That's not true! I've never said I wanted to see him!" Nate grumbled.

"Yeah but that's totally why you're moping isn't it?" Ethan narrowed his eyes, he was lounging across Rosa's bed while the brunette had camped himself out on the floor.

"Shut up. Why are you here? Go away."

"Um, no. I don't want to. Besides, you're funny when you're mad."

"Be quiet, I'm not a toy, I'm not here for your entertainment. " He practiced clenching and releasing his fist every time Ethan made a movement. He wasn't going to hit him, but the thought of slugging him in the face made him feel a lot better.

"You should do something other than staring at the hotel wall or crying in the shower."  
"Shut up Ethan, I don't cry in the shower."

He gave a venomous smile and patted his head, "You're so feisty, I wouldn't mind pushing you over and topping you."

"Ethan!" He gasped, "Like hell I'd ever give you the opportunity!" The brunette wanted to hurl at the thought that just entered his mind.

"Hey I'm just saying I think you're interesting. So for real, what are you going do for the next week or so? You can't just sit in this room a rot." He stood up and stretched out his body before waltzing over to the tv, typical.

"I-I'm not rotting, I'm just thinking all the time." Nate gritted his teeth, why couldn't Ethan just leave him alone? Everyone else from the party, minus his friends, did a great job at avoiding him.

For the first time in the last hour Ethan was quiet for more than two minutes, of course the TV helped shut him up. There was a program on about the lives of gym leaders before they became gym leaders. Of course though, only the ones who had interesting careers beforehand were covered in this documentary.

"You could go to the library, do you like books? Books are-"  
"Ethan! Shut up, I'm watching this!" The Unova boy said with a sour voice before clapping a hand over the loud mouth's yapper.

The show had now moved onto discussing Norman's life, Nate breathed heavy wondering if they were going to show a clip or picture of Brendan at all. It turned out that the gym leader was originally from Johto, when Ethan heard that he gave a hoot of approval even though he had no clue that Norman was Brendan's dad.

A creaking sound pulled the brunette's attention away from the screen, Hugh scowled when he saw Ethan but said nothing, instead he sulked over to his and Nate's bed and watched the show with them.

A couple more familiar faces flashed on the TV, the Unova teen's mouth opened a bit when he recognized Steven, who was apparently the champion, then his heart finally palpitated when a picture of Brendan was shown for a split second. He wasn't the only one who noticed his crush.

"Fucking faggot," Hugh sneered under his breath.

"What!?" Nate hissed at him.

"Nothing."

"You called Brendan a faggot!"

"He can't hear me," The taller teen rationalized.

Ethan awkwardly began to rise, "I think I'm going to go…" He said, but no one heard him or noticed him leave.

"But I can!"

"Oh? You can hear me now? After all the silent treatment suddenly you can listen to me?"

"I'm defending Brendan! It doesn't mean I'm on talking terms with you!" Nate now was standing up.

"Why are you defending him?" Hugh hissed, "He didn't even try to defend you!"

"That-that's not true!"

"I hate to break it to you, but when I attacked him the first thing he did was blame it on you!"  
"N-no, It was reasonable… He was just… Anyone would of…" The brunette went silent.

"Why are you defending a guy like that? He doesn't even seem to care about you!"

"I-I like him…"

"That doesn't give him an excuse to use you!"

"He's not using me!" Nate jumped on the bed and hid himself under the covers. Brendan didn't use him right? He had to of cared about him, he was flirty with him, and he punched Ethan when he found out he was bothering Nate. But then again, flirting with him might of just been to get sex, and punching Ethan might have been because he didn't want him spilling the beans.

"What do you think he would of done if he knew what happened to your Pokemon?" Hugh's words dripped with poison as he hung his body over Nate's own coiled up one.

"Don't Hugh… please…"

"I think he would of stopped talking to you, he would have probably made excuses on why you couldn't stay the night at his place. And then slowly you wouldn't have any connection with him, he might even start rumors about you."

"Hugh! Stop it! You don't know him." Nate twisted himself closer together, even though Hugh didn't know him, what he said probably would likely happen.

Brendan held up an ice pack to the bruise on his cheek and hissed in pain, his dad had caught him off guard when he smacked him across the face. It wasn't the first time he had done that to him, but he had always done it in discipline, such as when he was a kid and he let loose their neighbors Pokemon. He wondered if that's was his dad's reason this time, to discipline him.

When his father had asked his mother what happened that morning he yelled at the trainer for two things, the first thing being that he slept with another guy, the second thing being that he didn't fight Hugh back. He said he didn't want his son to be a gay AND a wimp.

Well, Brendan wasn't a wimp, he knew very well when to throw his fists and when to just let things play out. He could of taken Hugh, he may be taller but there was no way that a city slicker who lived in the soft light of luxury could be stronger than him. Even if he had traveled all around Unova, their routes were paved and straight, Hoenn routes required you to climb over rocks and tree's. It was even safe to say that he did Hugh a favor in not fighting him back, but no matter how well he convinced himself this it still didn't mean his father saw it that way.

The ruby eyed teen bit his lip, Norman wasn't a homophobe, he was ok with anyone being gay, anyone but his son. Originally he wanted Brendan to try to pursue May but gave up on that when he noticed that neither Brendan or Professor Birch's daughter were interested in each other that way.

Steven Stone was one of the few reason's Brendan knew his dad was ok with Gay people, when they first met Norman even asked what kind of men he like. However the father almost had a heart attack when he found out that his son was dating Steven, actually almost everyone had a heart attack when they found that out. Hoenn was smaller than many of the other regions, and there weren't very many laws on things like age related stuff, you could buy alcohol when you hit fourteen. Brendan and Steven didn't have to hide their relationship from the public, though most people were disgusted by their age difference, the champion had even received hate mail for it.

The white hatted teen snapped out of his thoughts when his bathroom door opened.

"I thought I told you to learn how to knock."

May rolled her eyes at him, "I didn't think I had to learn anymore since you are no longer strolling around the nude with the slut."  
"That's not very nice, you shouldn't call yourself a slut."

"Ew, you knew who I was talking about. Why would I run around naked with you anyways?"

"It's actually pretty fun, ask Nate. He liked it." Brendan put the ice pack down and walked into his room.

"I don't ever want to see that kid again," She scoffed, "especially after what he did to you."

"He didn't do anything to me," the pressed his eyebrow's together, how much longer was she going to try to convince him that Nate was to blame for Hugh attacking him?.

"Whatever. I'm just glad you took my advice and sent him home for it."

"The reason I sent him home was unrelated to what Hugh did, why do you hate him so much?"

"What's not to hate?"

What's not to hate? Pretty much everything about Nate was un-hate-able to Brendan, which did actually manage to reverse the effect a little and piss him off. Ok there were a few things about Nate that the white capped teen could do without, such as his nosey-ness, which in the end was what got him kicked out of Brendan's company. Then there was the luggage of his unbearable friends, well mostly Hugh was his issue, Rosa had nothing to do with anything, although she seemed to be a stick in the mud.

There was so much more to enjoy about the younger teen, he didn't deserve all the shit May and himself were putting him through, Nate was just… new to this whole being friends with Brendan thing.

Ugh but he was such a pain in the ass too! Damn it, maybe there were actually more thing's to hate in him than the Hoenn teen thought.

"So are you ever going to come to my place again or are you just going to hide yourself in your house for the rest of the month?" May yawned.

"Nope! I'm not going anymore, they all know."

"Oh no you don't! Don't use your sexuality as an excuse for not coming over. You promised me you would give other people chances and try to make friends."

"Um, I did give them a chance, and I did make a friend," He narrowed his eye's at her.

"Nate wasn't your friend, he was just a desperate push over."  
Brendan frowned, "You're unbelievable.." he murmured low enough that she couldn't hear.

The fear of everyone knowing he was gay wasn't a lie, even though he didn't show it he was panicking at the thought that everyone knew. Everyone. What if they accused him for hurting Nate or something, or what if they thought he was some kind of monster.

When he entered May's house he scanned the room by habit, looking for Nate, he then mentally slapped himself afterwards. He was surprised to see Rosa in the room, he thought she would of left for Unova alongside with Nate and Hugh. The trainer almost wanted to ask her if she knew how Nate was doing but stopped himself.

He really had to stop thinking about Nate, he was gone now, out of his life.

"Whoa, I haven't seen you around here for a while," Green smirked at him and held up a drink, "where have you been?"

Had he really forgotten what happened a few days ago?

"None of your business… Give me that!" He snatched the shot away from the senior trainer and practically inhaled it. It was already half gone, and what was left wasn't nearly enough to get him even a little bit tipsy. He decided after that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get drunk anyways.

"Geez it was just a question, don't bite my head off."

Hilda now entered the picture and stared at him for a moment.

"What?"

"What did you do to make Nate cry so hard? I heard he's having a terrible time."

Brendan's heart pace quickened, they DID accuse him for hurting Nate. They probably thought the whole thing was his fault and that-

"Oh yeah you and Nate got it oooooon," Green cooed.

The ruby eyed teen relaxed a bit, ok maybe they didn't accuse him. He was just a little antsy right now.

"Tell me, was his butthole really tight? He seems like he'd be a screamer-"

"I have to get going," He coughed awkwardly. There was no way he was going to talk to Green about his sex life, or anyone for the matter. Maybe he should just leave, it hadn't been five minutes and already he was getting awkward questions. Besides, he had better things to do than stand around like an ornament.

He was about to walk out the door when he caught May giving him the eye from across the room, he would have to wait for a bit. The group seemed a lot smaller even though only three people were missing.

Or two now, Ethan walked through the door, where had he been? Apparently Brendan wasn't the one wondering, when Lyra asked his exact thoughts.

"I was in Oldale." The golden eyed teen chuckled it off.

Brendan couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, Oldale? He waited till Ethan had wandered off alone before yanking him into the kitchen.

"Ack! Don't hit me Brendan I promise not to let it slip about you and Nate," The Johto kid jeered.

"Shut up Ethan, why were you in Oldale?" Brendan waited for a long moment, "Well? Why aren't you saying anything?"

"You told me to shut up-"

"Oh for the love of the Legendaries, stop kidding around. Why were you in Oldale?"  
"I was visiting Nate. What of it?"

His heart skipped a beat, and he tried not to make himself sound overly excited.

"He's still in Hoenn?" That explained why Rosa was still here, would May be pissed he she knew? Probably, but that didn't matter to him.

"Uh yeah, plane tickets are expensive, they're still staying till the end of the month."

"Thanks, if you tell May I'll break your nose," Brendan snickered and slid out the door.

Nate had actually taken Ethan's advice later that day and visited the library, it wasn't exactly on his top ten list of preferred activities but it still killed time. The library was small and had mostly Hoenn related books. He had found out that the Pokemon he had seen with Hugh and got chased down by were Poochyena, and Mightyena, they were extremely common.

He did some sifting around in the Hoenn Pokemon book and decided he really liked Aggron, it was beefy, but he wasn't sure about Steel type Pokemon, he never really had much experience with them.

For a moment he felt a vibration in his pocket, he ignored it. It was probably Hugh, and quite frankly he wasn't in the mood to talk to him.

When he slowly strolled through the towering book shelves he couldn't help but admire how tall they allowed them to get, even with such a low roof. It was nothing compared to Leonora's Library, but for a small town it was pretty impressive. Nate wondered if this is where Brendan got all of his books.

He felt the vibration again, and once again he ignored it.

With his thoughts back to Brendan Nate remembered that the TV said Steven was champion of Hoenn. It took him a while to find a book on the line of Hoenn champions, he was relived it was a recent addition. He couldn't hurt Brendan with his snooping now, especially since he wasn't going to see him again.

The book described Steven as a treasure hunter, it explained in full detail about his battle strategies, and how many challengers he took on in a monthly ratio. There was a lot on his family connection and his father's business too. The brunette grimaced when he read that his special type was steel, it made him like Aggron a little bit less now. Towards the end of his entry it mentioned how he disappeared off of public radar and he hasn't been sighted since.

The Xtransceiver vibrated a third time and finally Nate picked up, the last text was from Hugh but the first two made his heart stop.

_'Don't go to bed tonight, text me when your friends are asleep.'_

_'Also leave your window open. –Brendan'_

* * *

**A/N:** Hahahahaha another cliff hanger. I'm sure some one out there want to assassinate me for this.


	10. So much to tell you

**A/N: **Oh great looks I've made some enemy's for that last cliff hanger. Oooops~  
Anyhow, this is a some what short chapter, but it's important.

* * *

Nate wasn't sure what to do about Brendan, he wanted to see him so badly, but after that talk with Hugh he felt guilty about his feelings, like he was doing something incredibly stupid.

_Maybe this is stupid_, he wondered as he looked at his Transceiver, should he text him?

He had done a perfect job staying awake and keeping the window open, even though he was uncertain about if he really wanted to see the kid who told him to go home and then slapped his face or not.

'_They're asleep…' _Instantly he half regretted it after he clicked the send button.

He waited in a chair by the TV, maybe if he was lucky Brendan won't be able to find the right window and give up. That way Nate himself wouldn't have to make any big decisions on whether if it was smart of him to see the older teen or not.

As he impatiently waited for a text back or even a sound out the window he glanced over at Hugh's sleeping body. He can absolutely not know about this, whatever happens Hugh cannot wake up, for all he knew his best friend still wanted to kill Brendan.

'_Window. Now.'_

The brunette breathed in a sharp breath and walked slowly over to the window, he felt his knee's begin to shake at the thought of seeing the white hatted trainer again. Conflicting thoughts entered his mind, what if this wasn't a positive meeting? The last time he was this hopeful about meeting up with Brendan ended up being his banishment.

The hotel window wasn't that high up, the base of the window was at Brendan's forehead, and someone as tall as Hugh could simply look into the room if he wanted to.

Ruby eye's met chocolate brown, they didn't look angry but they weren't apologetic either.

"What's up?" He flashed Nate a white grin.

"What's up?!" the brunette clung onto the windowpane, "you could be a little more formal than that," He tried to keep his voice down low.

"My bad, I'm more 'formal' down here, would you like to come down and see how 'formal' I can be?"

Was he hitting on him!? Brendan definitely seemed playful, not the same kind of playful when he was tipsy, no it was like the playfulness from the last time they slept together. Oh god he was hitting on him, after all that crud they just went through he had the nerve to hit on him.

Nate's stomach twisted, he prayed to the Pokegods that wasn't the main reason he was here. Was he just a booty call or something?

"I-I don't know. I don't think I want to…"

He raised an eyebrow, "You don't want to come down? Or you don't want to spend a little time with me?"

"I think… I think I'm mad at you right now."

"Think?"

Nate blushed, he felt like an idiot, "No I'm mad at you. Leave me alone, I'm not coming down."

"Well, I didn't sneak away from May and walk here at the dead of night for you to brush me off…"

"Well that's too bad!" He grumbled, Hugh was right! Brendan was selfish and was just using him.

"Come on Nate, I don't want you to leave with us on bad terms."

The Unova boy scowled before walking away from the window, he made up his mind, even though he wanted more than anything to be with Brendan right now he knew the smart this was to just walk away.

Not really wanting to sleep next to Hugh he sat back down in his chair and drew his legs into his chest. It wasn't the most comfortable position but it beat having to sweat in a hot bed next someone he was in a fight with.

Just when he started to relax his Xtransceiver vibrated.

_'I'm not gone. I'm coming in if you aren't coming out.'_

He was selfish.

_'I'd like to see you try.'_

As much as he meant that as an empty challenge, he couldn't help but hope that Brendan would. Damn. He was so pathetic.

There was a tinkering noise from outside and Nate instantly recognized as Brendan climbing on the air conditioning unit right beside the window.

He tensed up and looked over at Rosa and Hugh, hoping they wouldn't hear him, for someone who brags about living in the wilderness so much he was an awfully noisy climber.

When the Hoenn boy finally made it in the room he gave Nate an exhausted look.

"Come on Nate let's go," He stubbed his toe on his way over to the chair and did an excellent job in keeping quiet, the brunette almost wanted to clap, but when he reached out his hand Nate refused to grab it. "What are you twelve? I said lets go."

_Yes, Brendan is very selfish_, Nate concluded in his head, and even understanding this he still beat himself up over the fact that he couldn't take his eye's or mind off of him. He wanted him bad.

The older teen glanced over his shoulder at the two beds and then hunched his body over Nate's, when the other trainers hands slipped down from his back to under his rump he refused to fight it. Instead he melted under his touch and wrapped his own arms around Brendan's shoulders right before the taller teen lifted him off the chair and hoisted his legs around his gut.

"You're lighter than I expected," Brendan smiled up at him.

"P-put me down you asshole."

"Shh, don't wake them up. May will beat me if one of them blabbed that I came to see you. I will put you down when we get outside," He opened the door and payed extra attention to keeping silent when shutting it.

Nate wasn't sure if he was ok with Brendan kidnapping him or not, all he knew was that he actually didn't want the older teen to put him down, he just wanted him to hold for as long as he could.

The hallways of the hotel were empty except for the occasional house cleaner, the brunette couldn't help but blush when he made eye contact with them, was this going to add to the rumors on Brendan? Probably, Oldale was small, they needed some form of entertainment.

When outside Brendan was true to his promise and put Nate down, he studied him for a moment before pulling away. "Ok, Let's go on a walk," he smiled.

The Unova boy cursed at himself for getting that fluttery feeling again, he didn't say anything instead he just followed Brendan into the woods.

His hands flinched when Brendan's fingers grazed his own and gently pulled his hand into his.

"Why aren't you mad at me anymore? Don't you just want to slap me again?" He hissed when he remembered he was also supposed to be mad at him.

"Don't worry I'm still mad."

"How am I not supposed to worry about that?"  
"You can just drop it?"

Nate scowled, "If you're mad at me then why did you come to see me?"

"Because I wanted to."

"But you're mad at me!"  
"So what!? I still like being around you, even though I told you to go home it wasn't like I wanted you to. I just thought it would be the smart thing to do. I didn't know you would still be in Hoenn, so when I heard you were here I fell for temptation. Geez, let's just enjoy the time we have together."

That shut Nate for a bit.

The sky was very clear that night, only a few clouds drifted among the stars, each one was hit by the moons radiant light as well as the spread out tree's in the pine forest. Nate was starting to enjoy the scent of pine needles quite a bit during his stay here, it was too bad he would have to leave in about a week.

"Oof!" The brunette thudded into the back of his elder. Brendan acknowledge the unawareness with an adoring look before sitting down on the ground.

They sat at a large creek bed, the water was so still that you could see every shape above it reflected perfectly in the mirror like surface.

"Do you like Hoenn?"

The question took the teen by surprise, why was he asking this?

"Yeah. It's really pretty."

"Good," He gave a crooked smile, "So what's Unova like?"

"Why? I thought you said you'd never visit Unova."

He gave him a confused look, "I never said that."

"No I read it in the Unova book you have in your bookshelf."

"Oooh," He chuckled, "I got that a long time ago, don't worry about it. People change, interest change as well. And right now I'm a little bit interested in Unova and some of its people."

The shorter teen blushed at the other teen's flirtatious gesture, "W-well, it's bigger than Hoenn, and there's a lot to see there. We have nice food?"

The white hatted teen looked Nate in the eye, "That was a dumb summery, what do you like to do in Unova?"

"I don't really do anything. I kind of just sit at home all day and watch TV, not having Pokemon limit's me anyways."

"Fatass!"

"Hey! I am not! I'm just… boring,"

"I disagree, I think you're pretty interesting actually," He snickered, "only a bit though."

"Geez thanks," he said with a hint of sarcasm.

Brendan stroked Nate's cheek with his hand, "I'm sorry about hurting you," his eye's inched over every spot on Nate's body, "b-but you have to realize that you've been hurt me a lot too. Every time you do exactly what I tell you not to do it makes me reluctant to trust you."

"I'm sorry…" He mumbled as Brendan ran his thumb over his lip.

"I hope you are, because I feel really stupid what I'm about to tell you," He narrowed his eyes, "And don't think this is a reward, you actually have no right know of any thing, especially after being as nosey as you are."

Nate drew his eye's up to Brendan's, he was curious.

"I, I just care about you, and I guess I'm a little ok with telling you about me a Steven now."

"You don't have to. I promise I'll stop snooping, you don't have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable."

"Nate please, we both know you would never stop butting into other peoples personal lives."

The younger teen adverted his eye's in embarrassment.

With a large sigh the trainer began,"I met Steven when I was traveling Hoenn. We crossed paths a few times and we were always a little bit flirty," Brendan leaned back in the grass and Nate rested a hand on his stomach, he wondered if this wasn't such a good idea, he was already getting that upset feeling.

"I didn't know he was the Hoenn Champion at the time so I wasn't intimidated by his status like other people were. That seemed to be appealing to him so he started hanging around me a lot and before I knew it we started hooking up."

"Oh," Yep, Nate was feeling sick with jealousy now.

"Don't think too much about it, that stuff is in the past now," He ran his fingers through his hair, the brunette could tell that the ruby eyed teen was getting uncomfortable. "After I challenged the Pokemon league, which I failed miserably might I add, me and Steven went official. However our relationship was a taboo times two. We were both guys, and there was an age gap between us. I was still really young at the time so I didn't fully understand why everyone was disgusted by our relationship. The only person who seemed to support us was May, but she was also naïve at the time."

"That's odd, you'd think May would kick and scream about the relationship." Nate snorted but wondered if maybe he should kept quiet when Brendan gave him a stern look.

"May really liked Steven too. Not the same way I did of course, he was my first love, but they were really close. He was like an older brother to her, and sometime they spent more time together doing dumb activities more than he spent with me. That's probably why she hate's you Nate. She's been hanging onto hopes for Steven just as much as I have, if not more. You're a threat to her fantasy. We were like a small family," he took a few seconds to breathe before continuing, "Those were some of my happiest times in my life. I was able to ignore what others thought of our relationship but Steven wasn't. One day he just packed up and left. All he left was a journal," his finger's dug into the ground, "Just a journal! A fucking journal! He never said goodbye to me or May! Instead he just gave me a sick Pokemon and left the fucking journal in my mail box! I mean I understand it was too much for him! I read the damn thing all the way through eight times but he could of at least said goodbye to me!"

Tear's started to pour over his cheeks as the teen tried to hold back what he could.

"I thought I meant enough to him that he would at least tell me he was leaving! He just left me in the dust! I was still really young and I had this stupid idea that he would come back! I became obsessed with trying to find him! Hell! I'm still looking every night! I'm trying to gather clues but I know I won't find anything!" Brendan was now sobbing into his hands.

Nate didn't know what to do, he felt guilty, guilty because he treated Brendan as a game, he tried to open things up without his permission and he didn't considered that he was still hurting a lot.

"The Pokemon he gave me died because I was so depressed and selfish that all I could do was mope in my bedroom! I've been trying to get rid of everything that reminds me of him but it's so hard to let go! And even though I really loved him at the time I can never forgive him now! I-I Hate him more than anything else in the world! I can't believe that I'm admitting this, but lately I've been praying that where ever he is, he's suffering just as much as I did."

Nate pressed into his body as comfort, "I'm sorry that he did that… It's not fair…"

"I don't care if it was fair or not! I just wanted him to at least tell me that he loved me one last time." He pulled Nate closer to him and rested his head on his shoulder.

The brunette wrapped his arms around Brendan till he stopped crying, for once it wasn't him.

Everything was quiet and peaceful after that, there were faint sounds of Pokemon calling out to one another in the distance which sounded more hopeful than lonely. Nate didn't like what Brendan told him, it made him feel like a horrible person, he always assumed the older teen was so strong and nothing could break him. Even the incident in the bathroom from the other day didn't entirely convince him that he could crack.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that," his voice croaked, "It's embarrassing to open up like that. I'm sure I seem really crazy to you now."

"No! You're not crazy! I would know," He really would, "I'm really sorry Brendan… I never should of investigated your stuff. You-you were right. It really was never any of my business, I- can you forgive me?"

The white hatted trainer moved his arms to Nate's ribs and changed their position so his back was up to Brendan's chest. "Yeah, you can come back to my house whenever you'd like too."

"What about May?"

"She'll survive, but don't say I didn't warn you, she's probably not gonna let you over to her house."

Brendan pressed his nose into Nate's neck, the younger teen shuttered as he started to feel sick to his stomach again. Was this the kind of stuff he did with Steven? Was it the other way around?

His hands traveled up his thighs and the brown eyed boy gasped. Why was he doing this? How could he do something like this? He just let out a shit ton of emotions and he was acting all horny now?

When something grazed his groin he felt something other than pleasure, "NO! We can't do that!" He felt disgusting.

"Whats wrong!? Are you hurt?"

"No, no, no! We can't have sex Brendan! It's too much. I- I don't know how to feel about it."

"That's ok Nate. It's ok to be confused on how to feel about it, especially after what I just told you."

"No it's not about what you just told me!"

Brendan lifted his eyebrows, "It's not?"

"No! Well yes, a little bit of it has to do with it, I just don't wanna have sex with you right now."

He didn't want to be used by him anymore.

"It's ok if you don't want to have sex, we don't have to have sex all the time, if that's what you're getting at."

"No! It's not that either!" He hissed.

"Then what is it?"

"I just.. I really, really, I like you. Like a lot. And it scares me to think that you don't like me, but you still want to have your way with me." He turned away from him and clenched his gut.

"Oh… yeah I kind of figured you liked me…"

"And?"

"And what?"

"Do, do you like me?" Nate whimpered.

"I uh…" Brendan bit his lower lip, "I'm sorry, I just… I just can't see myself with you."

A tear rolled down his face, "I get it…"

* * *

**A/N: **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IT'S ANOTHER CLIFF HANGER! I JUST CAN'T STOP! It's like meth, seriously.  
Anyhow I understand that this chapter is probably upsetting, so Ima just say it now, this story will end on a good note, don't worry about that. Keep on believing.

Also I'm not proud, but in a way I actually am, Im going to start posting chapters for another story featuring Nate again. Ahahaha oops. It might delay the chapters for this story, but it probably wont since this one is my main priority right now, and the other one has a shorter chapters.


	11. Two Jealous Boys

"Nate?! What are you doing outside?" Hugh let out a breath in surprise. He didn't remember hearing or seeing his friend leave last night, but then again, the blue haired trainer had always been a heavy sleeper.

"N-nothing! I just got locked out, that's all." The brunette sniffed and brushed shoulders with Hugh as they passed.

Was he crying? Damn it. Hugh shut the door and grabbed the collar of Nate's shirt to prevent him from going anywhere. He was tired of him being mad at him, he was tired of seeing Nate crying all the time, they needed to have a serious talk.

"Tell me what happened."  
"Nothing happened! I don't know what you're talking about."

Hugh narrowed his red eyes, "Then explain to me how you got locked out of the hotel room?"

"I needed fresh air."

"Was the window being opened all night not enough 'fresh air' for you? I had to close that damn thing at five in the morning because there was a Pokemon wailing outside of it!"

The brunette gave him a betrayed look, "You're the one who closed it!? Thanks you I lost my back up plan for getting back in!"

"Don't try to change the subject! What happened? Why. Were. You. Outside?"

"Where's Rosa?" The short teen tried to distract him again but Hugh wasn't having it, something needed to be done about this avoidance thing.

"Come on Nate," He pushed the teen towards the bed and sat him down, "Stop playing games with me. When something really bothers you, you tend to do what you can to not talk about it. We need to fix our relationship. I think we should start with the reason you were crying just a minute ago."

"I-I don't want to say…" He bit his lower lip as if he were holding back the urge to cry again.

"I know you say that, but I think deep down you do. It's ok," the trainer started to rub his friends back, "I'm not mad at you for that Brendan thing anymore. I never was mad, not at you I mean. I'm sorry I kicked Brendan's ass, I shouldn't of acted that way, I should of listened to what you had to say first."

"Damn right you should of listened!" he yelled. "You never listen! You always act before you think! You just- I can't! I don't know-" He started to break down crying like a little kid.

Hugh instinctively pulled Nate up to his chest and squeezed him, "It's ok Nate, I'm sorry I'm a terrible friend sometimes."

"It's not that. I'm not crying about you, it just. Brendan doesn't even like me, I feel so used, I mean I didn't realize that I liked him till the second time we had sex, but the feeling was always there. I- I just don't understand how he could of done all those things with me and not like me. He said he wants to be my friend but in all honesty I don't think I can do that. Am I- am I selfish for not wanting to be just a friend?"

"No, you're not selfish," an irritating ping made Hugh's heart leap, maybe now Nate would stop hanging out with that asshole, "If you don't think you can do it, then don't be his friend. It was wrong of him to play with your heart."

The brunette wrapped his arms around Hugh's neck and buried his nose right under his jaw. The robust trainer couldn't help but smile at the gesture, it was a familiar comfort technique that Nate always did when ever he'd get panic attacks about the accident.

"I- I'm sorry I snuck out last night."

"That's alright Nate, you don't need my permission," He had to hold back the growl rumbling in his throat, now wasn't the time to be putting restraints on his friend.

"I know it's just, I'm tired of fighting with you…"

"Me too."

He sighed before pulling himself away from Hugh, "I think I'm going to at least try being Brendan's friend…"

The taller teen tensed up, "You, you don't have to be his friend you know, I mean, you could just spend the rest of the week with me."

"I know, but it's just, I kind of just want to see if maybe there is some kind of hope between us. He said I was un-banished from his house. I think I'm going to head over there later today."

Hugh felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, he still hated Brendan with a living passion, why couldn't Nate just stay away from him? He suppressed the question back into his throat and glanced away from his friend.

On the nightstand was a single Pokeball with a small little crack on it. Even though that Mienshao never came out of its Pokeball Nate would always take it with him. Why didn't he take it last night? Hugh felt worry grow over him. Was Nate simply just giving up on it?

"Nate do you think you could talk about-"

"No," the response was instant, he must have seen Hugh looking at the Pokeball.

He took in a deep breath and did what he could not to raise his voice, "I think you need to talk about it, the more you keep it in-"

"I don't want to."

"What if," he couldn't believe what he was about to suggest, "What if you talked to Brendan about it? You seem to-"

"You can absolutely not tell Brendan!" He eyes were brimmed with tears again, "He'll hate me if he knew! He will know how bad of a person I really am! He'll never talk to me again!"

"But Nate! It wasn't your fault!"

"Yes it was! You said so yourself, I was being careless!"

Hugh once again wrapped his arms around Nate, "No, stop beating yourself up about it please." He knew this would be like all of the other times they talked about it, they were getting nowhere with this. They would just end up going home and almost never talk about it, infact, Hugh wondered, if Nate was closing up even more. Maybe he should take the risk of doing something different, even if it did put their friendship in jeopardy.

The Pokeball was on its side, Hugh knew Mienshao was in there and alive, when you held the Pokeball you could feel it's heart beating ever so slightly. It was just as sad as Nate and the trainer refused to see it.

"Why is he here?" Brendan narrowed his eyes at Ethan, he thought Nate hated Ethan.

"Don't ask me! He just followed me here."

"I'm here as Nate's body guard."

"And what makes you think he needs a body guard?"

"Um, I don't know, maybe because you slapped him last time he was over. Hands are dangerous Brendan, they're not toys, high fiving someone's face can seriously hurt them," The Johto kid passed through the door uninvited and made way for the kitchen.

"He doesn't need a body guard, if anyone need's one it's gonna be you if you don't get out of my fridge."

Ethan popped his head from behind the fridge door with a horrified look, "I'm just a little hungry…"

"I don't care, get out."

The teen ignored him and redirected his focus to Nate who was standing quietly in the kitchen doorway, "Quite frankly I'm glad this pompous bastard rejected you, he doesn't even let me eat."

Brendan clenched his teeth, who did he think he was teasing Nate like that? "Me rejecting him has absolutely nothing to do with you! Get out of here now or I'll move you myself!"  
"Relax buddy, I'm on my way out," He did start to move but when he reached Nate's side he paused, "I hope you know that now you're out of the picture I'm going to put some moves on him."

Ethan suddenly grabbed Nate's face, "Ah no! Ethan I hate yo-" with Arbok like reflexes he planted a big kiss on his lips just before Brendan forcefully yanked him off the younger teen.

Right before the lean trainer slammed the door on the violator he growled into his ear, "If you ever touch Nate again I'll make sure to call your family about your funeral. I thought you knew how to take warnings!"

The Johto teen drew his hand up to his healing lip at Brendan's reminder and nodded.

When the white hatted teen returned to the kitchen Nate was furiously wiping his mouth. "That wasn't your first kiss was it?"

"No," he sneered, "But it certainly wasn't wanted."

Brendan smiled in agreement, he was a little taken by surprised that Ethan actually dared to do that, especially after what he had done to the snarky teen after he found out that he had been teasing Nate. He wasn't actually going to punch him originally that day, but after the Hoenn boy gave him a clear warning Ethan started to push buttons with provocative questions about Nate, naturally it pissed him off, so Brendan slugged him.

"Stay away from him."

"Why?"

Why? Brendan scoffed, normally Nate would of just agreed, or insist he was already trying to do so, not ask why, "Because he's sick in the head or something."

"…Ok."

"You hesitated."

"I always hesitate."

"Did you like the kiss or something?"

"I already said that it wasn't wanted."

"Yeah, but did you end up liking it?"

"No! Geez, what's wrong with you. And even if I did it's none of your business. You wouldn't care"

Brendan's eye's widened, did he just use the none of your business card? That was Brendan's line, was he trying to get to him? "You're right, I don't care."

He couldn't help but notice Nate flinch to that and wanted to smack himself in the head.

They ended up watching TV till evening, Brendan was stuck watching some dumb show about Ponyta's but didn't complain because Nate seemed to really be into it. Instead he settled for asking moronic questions about it "What happened? Did the Ponyta's lose the game?"

Nate bit his lower lip and almost looked like he was puffing up, this was the third time Brendan had asked that question, "No. I told you, they aren't playing a game, they are trying to save the world."

The ruby eyed teen smiled in response, he loved how cute Nate looked when he got frustrated like that. He wanted to touch him, he wanted to spread him out on the couch and make him whimper underneath him and cry out for his attention. Sometimes he even got the feeling that he wanted to kiss him, but he knew that was going too far, he hasn't kissed anyone since Steven and he wanted to keep it that way.

He pondered for a minute when the brunette adjusted himself on the couch, he was right next to him, maybe he could just hold him a little, would Nate notice that? Maybe if he was lucky enough the Ponyta TV show would distract him enough.

"What are you doings?" The small teen almost looked hurt when he met eye's with Brendan.

"I'm um, holding you…"

"Please don't," he stood up, "It's-it's misleading."

"Where are you going?"

"Back to Oldale."

"What?! Don't go," Brendan stood up in protest, "At least let me walk you back."

"I can walk myself back."

"No. I'm walking you back. Besides, you don't have any Pokemon to defend you."

"…Fine."

Brendan scowled in defeat when Nate left him outside of the hotel, he kind of was hoping things would go back to the way they used to be and Nate would of stayed with him that night, of course he knew that he was dreaming but he still had hope.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" a much familiar and hated voice stopped Brendan in his footsteps.

"There's nothing wrong with me, I'm perfect, leave me alone," He wondered if Hugh was going to attack him again this time.

"Nate might let you hurt him continuously and lead him on but I'M not going to stand around and watch you kill him inside out!"

"Pfft. Funny that you would say that."

"What?!" Hugh tensed up.

"What exactly is your issue with me?"

"What's YOUR issue with ME!?"

Brendan rolled his eyes, "You bully Nate into doing things you want, you call yourself his friend but you torment him by forcing his actions by fear, anyone who cared about the kid would hate you for that."

"I do not!" His voice began to falter, "I-I care about him almost more than myself! I'm trying to protect him!"

"From what!? Becoming friends with people other than you? Do you attack everyone he's gets close to or am I just special?"

"You fucked him! Who wouldn't want to kill you for that?!"

"He wanted it!" This was ridiculous, "Face it, if you really cared you would let him do things his own way, now leave me alone. I have things to do." Brendan whisked around and attempted to leave again but was stopped by Hugh hand on his shoulder. This was it, he was going to turn around and Hugh was going to punch him in the face, he braced himself.

"I hate you more than everyone else because I'm jealous of you!"

"Eh, you're not going to punch-" his lack of actions caught him off guard, "I mean- why?"

"Because I feel like you're stealing him from me. Nate actually seems happy around you…"

"I hate to make it sound like I'm trying to make you feel better, by all means I'm not, but if you haven't noticed, I always end up making Nate cry, so I'm going to have to call Tauros shit on that."

"Yeah, because he really likes you, he's happy for once and I think he's been crying so easily lately because he's afraid of that being ripped away from him." He frowned and looked away, "There was a time when Nate was really cheerful and careless, he was rarely ever sad, he then go into an accident that I feel like I could of prevented. Ever since then he hasn't been the same, at home he never goes outside, his mother would call me and beg me to try to get him outside of the house. He became afraid of just about everything. I feel like because I didn't protect him enough that he relates me to the accident, to fear. And so I really hate it when I see him happy around you, I wanted to be the one to make him happy again."

Brendan narrowed his eye's at Hugh and gave him a smug smile, "So, it just turns out you're selfish."

"What about you!?" The blue haired trainer barred his teeth. He had to admit it was weird seeing Hugh as anything else than just a head of angry flesh, so for this guy to be so honest this whole being honest with themselves thing seemed a little weird. "You're selfish too! You always do things with him depending on what you want! What right do you have to call me selfish!?"

"Hmmm. Maybe I am selfish, just like you. I think one reason I might hate you more than everyone else, and believe me I hate just about everyone, is that I don't know… I see a lot of myself in you. And that's not a compliment."

"Trust me I would never take it as one."

"I see a lot of the same flaws I have in you. You're right, I am selfish. I'm also very protective, I might not show it as much as you. I know how to retrain myself, in fact I might even dare to say that the more I hold back on doing or saying things, the more protective I'm being."

"Ugh, you've got to be kidding me. So you rejecting Nate was just you being protective right? Breaking his heart was you protecting him?" Hugh looked like he wanted to hurl.

"I'm not going to say yes or no to that. But I am going to point out that this isn't your region."

"What does that have to do with anything!?"

"I'm just saying you guys are leaving in like a week. No matter what I would of said to Nate the outcome would still lead to him being heart broken. He doesn't live here, and I don't live in Unova."

Hugh was quiet and Brendan smirked, he felt like he just won the fight, which felt fantastic. His pocket began to vibrate, "I have to go, May is calling me."

"No! You can't go!" Hugh seemed panicked, was Brendan going to be held hostage or something?

"I very damn well can!"

"No wait! Actually, the reason I wanted to talk to you wasn't to pick a fight…"

"What!? How can you say that? The first thing you said was what the hell was wrong with me!"

"I'm sorry, it's just a habit. I need to talk to you about Nate."

Brendan lifted an eyebrow and chose to ignore May's call, "I thought we just got done talking about Nate, kind of."

"Look I mentioned an accident, and I'm sure you have some sort of idea that there's something not right about him. I don't know what to do anymore because whenever I try to talk to him about the accident he shuts down. It's been like this for a year now. I don't know what else to do, and I think he's giving up."

"What do I have to do with this?"

"He seems to trust you, and I was hoping maybe you could do something about it."

Brendan couldn't help but burst into laughter, "You want my help!? Especially after fighting with me? No way!"

"You wouldn't be helping me," he growled, "it's for Nate."

He considered this for a moment, "What exactly do you want me to say to him?"

"I think you'll figure that out on your own."

"Ok, so what am I supposed to do? Just talk to him about something I don't know anything about?"

"I was getting to that! Geez impatient! Look I'm going to tell you something that it very traumatizing for him, and if you treat it as a joke I will murder you."

Brendan was slightly offended, he would never treat Nate as a joke. "So what is it?"

Hugh glanced around, "Let's sit down, I'm going to tell you what happened to his Pokemon."

* * *

**A/N: **I hate, but also love, to say this, but the end is almost near. :D  
I'm actually a little excited to get this story over with.


	12. The accident

**A/N: **Sorry this chapter took so long to update, I just really wasn't feeling like writing this emotional mess.  
Anyhow here it is, Chapter 12!

* * *

Nate was a little confused, he thought Brendan only went to Mt. Pyre at night, why were they heading over there in the broad daylight? Of course he wasn't complaining, the woods were much less scary now than before, and he was spending alone time with Brendan, even though he knew he didn't feel the same way about him.

"W-why are we stopping?" They were paused in a small natural clearing in the depth of the forest, the only sounds that could be heard were the hushing sound of wind against the tree's and the occasional movement of grass in the distance.

"I just want to take a rest."

That didn't sound right, last time they were on this route Brendan kept telling him to hurry the fuck up and that he would never get strong if he kept taking breaks.

The lean teenager looked back at the brunette with a hint of sadness before reaching for his Pokeballs, "I want you to meet my Pokemon."

Nate couldn't help but break out a nervous laugh, "What? Why? You don't have to do that."

He didn't answer that, instead he released a bunch of funny looking Pokemon he was unfamiliar with, there were only five of them.

"This is Marshstomp, Absol, Breeloom, Exploud, and you've already met Flygon." The Pokemon were all huge and although they seemed well trained Nate couldn't help but hide behind Brendan just a little.

"Oh, um. Hi guy's"

"No, no, no. Properly say hello, don't be a coward. Go pet them, they like being loved on." Brendan stepped away from the Unova boy, blowing his cover.

"I'm not good with Pokemon," he quickly followed the elder teen.

"You were ok with Flygon."

"That's because you were with me! I'm sure they will hate me."

"I'm with you now." Brendan grabbed him by hand and waist and walked him over to Marshstomp and forced his hand up to the peak of its nose, the water Pokemon pushed its head into Nate's hand lovingly. "Marshstomp was my starter Pokemon. He's the most gentle Pokemon on my team and wouldn't hurt a fly unless commanded to do so, He's not so scary now is he?"

"I-I guess not."

Suddenly Nate went alert as he felt the ground shake, he pressed his body into Brendans for safety when the Exploud ran over to the two teens in jealousy and head-butted the Marshstomp out of the way.

The blue aquatic Pokemon growled a threat to the Exploud but stayed in his new spot afar knowing too well when the time to fight was and wasn't.

"Exploud!" Brendan scolded him, "ease it down a bit." His arms instinctively wrapped around Nate when the teen tensed up even more at the heavy Pokemon's forwardness.

This didn't go unnoticed to Nate, it felt good being held by the trainer that he liked so much, but there was still that aching feeling knowing that he wasn't returning his feelings or anything like that. He was just being the shallow flirt that he was.

The lavender Pokemon nuzzled Nate curiously with the tip of its nostrils before cheerfully roaring in a manner the Unova teen guessed was a hello.

The dark haired teen pulled them both away from the Pokemon and had them sit on a log, he never let go of Nate's hand or waist, instead he held on tighter. "As you can see I only have five Pokemon on my team right now, I hope you remember why."

The brown eyed boy started to shake and he nodded, "Your-your Aron…" something about this conversation was starting to seem familiar.

"yeah. She's gone. But that's ok, I'm sure her spirit is in a happier place."

"O-o-oh. Ca-can we please talk about something else?" Nate's heart dropped to the lowest when Brendan shook his head no and wrapped both arms around him. H knew instantly It wasn't affection, it was a restraint.

The Hoenn trainer's nose rubbed against the small teens cold cheek sending a shiver down Nate's spine. He could hear every shift of muscle in Brendan's throat when he inhaled slowly.

"It's ok Nate, Pokemon die, and sometimes accidents happen. It wasn't your fault."

"NO! NOT YOU TOO!" the boy cried out so loudly and jerked so suddenly Brendan almost lost his grip on him. His Pokemon who were starting to doze off all jumped to their feet and then relaxed a bit when they saw that no one was actually in danger. "HOW DO YOU KNOW?! WHO TOLD YOU?!"

"That doesn't matter Nate. You need to talk about this, you've been holding it in too long."

"LET GO OF ME! I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T ASK OR SAY ANYTHING ABOUT MY POKEMON! YOU LIED TO ME! YOU'RE A LIAR!" his fingers pried frantically at the other trainers arms.

"Nate calm down, you're ok. I'm doing this because I care-"

"LIAR! YOU DON'T EVEN LIKE ME!" He was now clawing at Brendan who had no choice but to wince in pain as Nate's untrimmed nails raked at his skin.

"Come on now, you know that I care."

"L-LET GO!" his struggle continued and when he realized he couldn't get out of Brendan's arms he went limp and began to sob, "Please don't make me do this. I can't handle it."

"You can and you will, if you don't properly talk about it can only get worse."

"No Brendan you don't understand, I just can't do it. It was all my fault! They're gone because of me!"

"No it wasn't! Accidents happen. You need to get over it!"

He gasped, "How can I get over something like this!? Ho-"

"Shh, you can, things like this have happened to millions of other trainers too unfortunately. You're not alone." Brendan tried his best in getting Nate to calm down but his chest was rising and dropping so fast it looked like he was about to hyperventilate.

"Has it happened to you!?" It came out as more of an attack than a question.

"N-no. But I assure you aren't the only one. You're safe with me."

There was a sharp yelp when the Absol padded over to the crying trainer and rested her body at his feet, the teen pressed into Brendan's side and wearily looked around. All the Pokemon were watching him with compassionate eyes. This was embarrassing! Is this the real reason he brought out his Pokemon? For an audience!? He felt blood rush into his head, causing it to burn. Safe huh? Brendan said he was safe with him…

"Absol is a sweetheart, she's very protective over me and the people I care about."

Nate's lips quivered and he looked up at him with round brown eyes, they searched the older teens face looking for any hint of falseness, any reason to call him an even bigger liar and to not trust him, there was none.

His fingers shook as he dared to reach out and pet the Absol's head, although she wasn't exactly purring with joy at the contact she didn't seem to mind his fingers stroking through her white fur. Eventually he abandoned Brendan's side and was now burying his face into her fuzzy neck, he missed hugging his Pokemon, they always could comfort him no matter what, his eye's began to drip again.

"I was so scared, I didn't know what to do!" He admitted out loud.

"Tell me what happened."

"Apparently you already know!" he shrieked, "You don't need me to tell you!"

"So you felt scared?" Nate glared back at him, Brendan must have been a professional at ignoring the fact that he wasn't even supposed to know about this. "Why were you scared?"

"I felt like I had no control over the situation… B-But I did! And I didn't do anything about it!" He tightened his arms around the Absol's neck, she tensed up and for a minute it seemed like she was about to book it but ended up relaxing when her trainer gave her a warning glance.

The ruby eyed teen removed his self from the log and joined Nate on the ground, he didn't say anything or touch him, he just sat next to him.

The panicked feeling in the younger boy was now starting to die down; maybe what Brendan had said was true, maybe he was safe with him. The Pokemon didn't seem to have that natural hate for him that he was so sure other Pokemon did.

"Me and Hugh were heading towards Nimbasa city for the first time," he gulped, he couldn't believe he was telling him this, after all this time of trying to keep it out his life he was going to finally talk about it with the jerk who rejected him.

The white hatted teen leaned forward to indicate he was listening, he was so close that the brunette could smell the intoxicating spicy sweet scent that Brendan seem to magically be born with.

"Nimbasa City has a lot of trains, so naturally we were excited when we found train tracks. We knew if we followed them we'd eventually get there. I-I was stupid and I was walking directly on the tracks… Hugh told me it wasn't safe," He paused to swallow, "I hate trains."

"Go on."

Nate scowled, was he being impatient!? He better not be. When his eye's met Brendan's they just looked proud. What the hell? Why would he be proud of this? There was nothing to be glad about, it was a terrible thing that happened and if anything he should be horrified, not proud.

"Nevermind!" He whipped his face back into Absol's coat.

"No! Don't shutdown now! You were doing so well!"

"Shut up! Don't talk to me like I'm a kid!" He said bitterly.

"I-I've never thought of you as a kid!" Brendan was taken back.

"Yeah right!"

"So why do you hate Trains?"

"Shut up!"

"Come on Nate. Tell me, I'm here for you."

"No you're not! Go away!"

The older trainer rested his hand on his back, "Why are you afraid of them-"

He turned around and smacked his hand away, "BECAUSE THE TRAIN DIDN'T STOP OR SLOW DOWN! I HAD TO JUMP OUT OF THE WAY. I MEAN I KNEW IT WAS MY FAULTY FOR TREATING IT AS A GAME BUT THE CONDUCTOR DIDN'T EVEN WHISTLE OR ANYTHING! I ENDED UP FALLING DOWN A ROCKY HILL AND BROKE MY LEG AND ARM! WHEN I REALIZED WHAT HAD HAPPENED I FELT SO POWERLESS! I-I THOUGHT- I thought maybe there was a chance that I didn't leave my bag up there... I was hoping that maybe the bag would be between rails and it somehow was untouched. I was- I was so stupid about it, I shouldn't of been playing on the tracks, I should of listened to Hugh. And-and I shouldn't of left my bag up there with my Pokemon."

Nate began breathing heavily as the memories came flooding back to him, it was as if he could see it, even feel the pain he felt when everything happened. The hundreds of slices on his skin when he fell down the hill, and the two crushing snaps when his arm hooked a boulder and was instantly followed up by another one crashing onto his right leg. What was worse than the physical pain was the silence that took him moments after he fell, he was numb to all else besides the fact that he was stripped of his bag, it was only moments after the realization hit him like a brick wall that his Pokemon were in it and still up there with the train.

"My Mienshao… He-he was the only one who wasn't crushed inside his Pokeball, b-but he refuses to come out now. I just-just know he hates me, I shouldn't of dropped the bag, as their trainer It was my responsibility to look out for them when they couldn't do so themselves."

"You had to do what you could to protect yourself," Brendan reminded him.

"No! Brendan! I shouldn't have been on the tracks. I was goofing off, Hugh told me to get off because a train was coming, I thought it would be fun to see how long I could stay on before chickening out and running off. Hugh-Hugh slapped me after words, he called me a little bitch for being so careless and I was the reason my Pokemon had died. I wasn't fit to be a trainer, and I'm still not. I don't want to hurt anyone!"

When Hugh had Told Brendan what had happened to Nate's Pokemon he was under the impression that Nate didn't want Pokemon because he was scared of death, but now it seemed more like he was more afraid of being the one to hurt them than anything else. That he didn't want to confront his guilt.

"But- But you've learned from your mistakes…" He tried but failed to get a response.

His eyes watched the teen bury his face into his Pokemon's fur seeking comfort from the creature. Brendan wanted to hold Nate, at least touch him, but every time he seemed to get close to even just grazing his smooth skin the brunette would tense up or lash out at him.

Eventually he gave up on comforting him plopped his own face into Absol's neck.

"You need to learn to let go of things."

"Ha!" Nate let out a laugh in disbelief, "Like you're one to talk."

"Excuse me?"

"I just think it's ridiculous that you think I should get over this when you refuse to get over Steven."

"What! I- wha- Steven has nothing to do with this! Besides, I said I was trying to get over him! It's not like I have any love left for him."

"Yeah but you're still not over him!" He sneered in a venomous tone.

"What am I supposed to do? Just suddenly stop?"

"I don't know, maybe! Or-or you could try…" Nate stopped midsentence and looked away with a blush, though it was hard to tell for sure if it was actually blush or he was still red from crying.

Brendan was a little pissed off now, he had finally gotten the avoidant little devil to admit what had happened and now he was bringing up Steven as an attack. He kind of deserved it though.

"Or I could try what?" He growled.

"You could stop trying to hang on to the hope of Steven coming back and try dating again."

He was glad Nate's head was turned away from him because his jaw dropped in offense. Was he trying to guilt trip him into dating him? More importantly, the dark hair teen had no choice but to shrug off a shiver, could he see right through him? His reasons for rejecting him?

He then made three huge mistakes.

"I-I- DON'T BE STUPID! I COULD NEVER DATE SOMEONE LIKE YOU!" He knew that lie was mistake number one as soon as he opened his mouth.

Nate swung his head around with a completely heartbroken, destroyed, expression, "I didn't say that it had to be me! But thanks for rubbing it in!"

"Yeah, yeah. you were thinking it!" Mistake number two. He was already going over the edge with this.

Absol grunted when the younger teen pushed himself away from her and sped off. Brendan was hot after him, when his fingers grabbed for Nate's the brunette skillfully pulled them away and punched him in the gut.

He held onto his stomach and absorbed the rushing pain of quickly bruising skin.

"Is this how you're getting back at me!?"

"What?" His left bottom eyelid lifted up in confusion, get back at him for what? He had nothing to get back at him for.

"This whole thing! Forcing me to talk about accident, and then- and then always touching me and trying to hug me even though I know we aren't ever going to be together. Is it all some sort of master plan in making me die inside out or something because I didn't respect your rules when I was staying with you? Be-because I kept poking my nose into your business?"

First off he didn't think he forced him to say anything, he could of stayed silent this whole entire time, and then the whole thing with Nate snooping around his stuff, he was over that now.

"No. Why would I do that? I adore you."

"Don't say that! Don't say it if you don't mean it! That hurts just as bad!"

"But I mean it!"  
"No you don't!" He hissed, "You're just a horny bastard! Why don't you go fuck May, or Ethan, or I don't know, there plenty of attractive guys at you're bitchy friend's house right now. It will be a lot better for the both of us!"

"Um EW! Why would I ever want to have sex with any of them? Gross." He looked down at the other boy, he was shaking and holding his own arms to his chest, a ping of guilt spread through him, Brendan was a monster.

"Look, I-I-I don't hate you. And it might be possible that I like you only a teensy bit more than a friend. I mean you're just, so cute, it's impossible to not wanna just hug you."

The brown eye's lifted up in hope and met his own ruby eyes, "I-I'm cute?"

Brendan blushed and looked away, "Yeah. Very. Everything you do is so damn silly and you always try being secretive about things but you really aren't, and even though I'm fairly certain that other people can read you just as well I feel like I get to see a side of you no one else gets to see and I like that."

Nate's face turned all kinds of red and he shyly hid behind the collar of his shirt, "Do-do you think I look cute too?"

"Absolutely! I mean give it you're still a boy and you look like a boy and you still do boy things but every time I see you I just melt!" Brendan gasped, he was giving in, he was losing his grip and it was starting to sound like he was confessing to Nate. He couldn't do that! So right there and then he made his third mistake.

"But I still don't like you like that! I mean if you and me were the last two in Hoenn I might consider being with you," he wouldn't consider it, he'd jump to the opportunity if that happened, "but we aren't! So you have to let go of any hope of being with me! Now come on we're going home!"

He grabbed Nate's wrist and pulled him back towards the clearing, once again he was glad Nate couldn't see his face because he could feel his eye's begin to melt as if he were about to cry, he just ruined everything and he knew it.

* * *

**A/N: **I seriously can not stand how much of a cry baby I made Nate seem like this whole entire story so far. Ugh  
Thankfully from here on out I don't think he will be crying anymore. I can't believe it's almost over.


	13. No more Secrets

"Brendan dear, don't sulk."

"I'm not sulking," the troubled teen grunted sadly. He sat at the kitchen counter chin on marble, hat covering one of his eyes. Nate hadn't talked to him since they fought in the forest and now he was supposed to be leaving in a couple of days. It was probably for the best anyways, they did enough damage to each other. Brendan tried to text him but the kid only replied once to politely tell him to fuck off. At one point he walked over to Oldale to see if Nate would be more likely to come outside and talk but he was chased off by Hugh. Ok Hugh didn't really chase him, he called him a stalker and that embarrassed him enough to send him back home feeling weird about himself. He wasn't a stalker.

"Look honey, if you're going to be pouty all day go do it in your room. I don't want your father to come home to a negative atmosphere." His mother was vigorously cleaning the kitchen like she always did when ever his father was coming home.

Taking in a deep breath he decided it was best not to argue with her about where he can and where can't he sulk, he trudged up to his room and slammed the door causing one of the looser books on his shelf fall from the impact.

'Basic Field Guide to Hoenns Wilderness' He knew this book well, because of its many maps and insightful information about hidden places on the routes he used it to help him look for Steven. Maybe he should start looking for him again, he snorted and shoved the book back in the shelf at that thought. He didn't have the energy, hell he could barely concentrate his thoughts on Steven anymore, all he seemed to be able to think about lately was Nate.

He wanted to fix things with him, not just between them but with Nate's response towards Pokemon, the teen just couldn't live that way! Maybe his dad was right, maybe Nate needed a new Pokemon to love on, his Mienshao didn't seem like it was going to forgive him anytime soon.

His eyebrow lifted and he reached for the Field Guide again.

"Tell him I'm not here and to go away!" Nate snapped at Rosa who had answered the door.

"Nate I can see you," Brendan smacked his face before sliding passed Rosa who willingly let him. Traitor! Where was Hugh when he needed him? He wouldn't have let a demon like Brendan in, unlike Rosa!

"Go away, you're not welcomed here!" He buried himself under the sheets of his and Hugh's bed, what time was it anyways? Like eight in the morning? Brendan should know he doesn't get up as early as him, even though today coincidentally enough he was, but he didn't want the other teen know that.

"Look, I know you hate me now-"

"I don't hate you!" Nate interrupted, "Go away."

Brendan groaned and gave Rosa an apologetic look for disturbing the peace, "I'll leave if you come with me."

"That defeats the purpose of you leaving." He gasped when he felt Brendan pull away the covers from him, "No! My shield!" He quickly pulled them back over him, if he made eye contact with him his heart might melt and he'd forgive him. No, he needed to stay mad at him, Brendan ripped his heart out, squeezed the juices, and enjoyed like lemonade, he didn't deserve a Happy Nate.

"I want to take you somewhere."

"Wow that phrase sounds very familiar. Now why is that? Oh yeah, you said that a few days ago about Mt. Pyre and we never ended up going there. Asshole!" He was proud of himself for being so strong about this, the corners of his lips curved into a half moon and then dropped abruptly when he heard Brendan let out a chuckle. _Brendan_ wasn't supposed to think this was funny, cute, or whatever reason he had to laugh at this, he was supposed to be upset because Nate wasn't giving in.

"Wh-what are you laughing at!?"

"I just think you're funny."

Brendan had never thought of him as funny, actually no one did, awkward maybe, but funny? No. In fact, the ruby eyed teen had let him know before how un-funny he was. The brunette peaked out of the covers to make sure that Brendan wasn't at gun point or something but as soon as his eyes met with the older teen's the barrier was broken.

He suddenly didn't feel so strong anymore, he was weak knowing that Brendan was standing right there with his dumb lean body and his dumb not as upset as Nate was hoping attitude. All of the emotions just flooded back to him, the hurt, the anger, the attraction, although he said he wanted him to leave the Unova boy decided he would be sincerely disappointed if he did.

"Come on Nate, I know, guilty as charged, I did lie the other day about going to Mt. Pyre, but I really want to take you somewhere special today."

"How do I know this isn't a trick?"

The dark haired teen crossed his arm's in frustration and huffed, "What the hell do I have to trick you into!? Geez! Just come with me! If you end up hating it you don't have to ever see me again, you- you're leaving in two day's anyways."

Although Nate thought this was reasonable and quite frankly he was already sold, there was this stubborn side of him that told him to at least make it look like he wasn't giving in already, "Define somewhere special-"

"OH MY ARCEUS! NATE JUST GO WITH HIM!" Rosa started smacking her head with a pillow, "You have been complaining about the fear of not being able to see him ever again this whole time you guys have been fighting and quite honestly if you refuse to go with him and then complain about it later I will burn you!"

Brendan's eyes widened and Nate blushed at her outburst. Looks like he was going outside after all.

"Come on, we have a long hike ahead of us and we have to go to the PokeMart," the white hatted teen practically bounced over to him to help him out of bed.

"I can get out myself!" He snapped and denied the friendly hand.

"You were wearing your day clothes to sleep?"

"I was awake before you came," he grumbled.

It took a long time to get to the place Brendan wanted to take him, scratch that, it took a REALLY long time to get there, and when they did Nate let out a snort.

"I don't get it. It's just a dumb old route, why did you bring me here?" He was at least expecting something cool not a whole bunch of spaced out tree's and boarder line marshy terrain.

"It's route 114," the taller teen smiled fondly at him.

A sneer escaped his mouth, seriously though there had to be something here that Brendan wanted him to see, why else would he make them Hike till noon?

He would have been in a better mood if the clerk at the PokeMart wasn't so rude earlier. The man gave him a hard look and then gave Brendan an equally as hard look when they had bought their items, he couldn't honestly figure out what his problem was. Unless there were still rumors going around in Oldale about Brendan's sexuality, but even then it wasn't like they bought condoms or anything, just several Pokeballs and a candy bar.

Well that was one reason he was in a bad mood, but then again it wasn't like he could forget that he was still beyond pissed at Brendan, so much so he couldn't even think of words to describe it or ways to bring it up.

"So, what are we doing here?"

He didn't answer, instead he flashed him a big bright smile.

"Brendan tell me!"

"Don't you just want to enjoy nature?" He purred, "We should sit down and just take everything in."

"Um where? We're standing in mud," did he have the right to be irritated right now? Because he was severely irritated, he made him walk all day, feet aching, and now he won't even tell him the reason he took him there.

"We can sit in that tree over there," well it was a nice looking climbing tree, Nate couldn't argue with him when he beckoned him to follow, " Besides you get a better view up here."

"Better view for what?!" he snapped.

"You could be a little happier you know."

"I'm still mad at you! I'm not allowed to be happy until you're unhappy." He climbed up after Brendan and sat on a branch that leaned away from the trainer.

His choice of spot didn't work though, Brendan moved and sat next to him, "Don't be so avoidant, I want to spend time with you, not watch you throw a pity part."

Nate opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when Brendan pulled out a couple of Pokeballs from his bag and handed them to him.

"Um, what are you doing?" But Brendan wasn't done, he reached to his belt and handed him Breloom's Pokeball as well as some Potions and a revive.

His dark eyelashes fluttered, "Go catch yourself a new Pokemon."

Nate gasped and almost dropped all of the stuff, "That's a- that's a horrible, Horrible idea! I-I can't. I CAN'T DO THAT! I'll hurt it!"

"You won't hurt it," he placed his rough hand under Nate's trembling chin, "Just don't do anything stupid with it."

"I can't!" He shut his eyed tightly, he should of stayed in bed.

Brendan then put his arm behind him, for a moment he wondered if he was going to hug him, nope, he shoved him off the branch not even batting an eyelash when the shorter teen splat into the mud.

"I'll be up here in this tree if you need me," he smiled darkly at him.

"What- You can't seriously expect me to- I haven't battled in- Fuck you Brendan!" Nate gave up and stomped off into the grass. Fine! He'll catch a damn Pokemon, as soon as he gets back to Unova he'll just release it anyways. He pondered for a moment, he'd have to find a Pokemon that won't fuck up the ecosystem then, what kind of shit Pokemon did they have up here anyways?

The Mightyena's crossed his mind and caused him to shuttered, no he didn't want one of those. When he really started thinking he realized that battling might not come as easy to him anymore, maybe he should practice before catching anything.

Something startled him and shook the grass near him, instinctively as if he was a real trainer again he released the Breloom, it gave him a confused look before Nate whispered that Brendan was letting him barrow him for the day. With understanding the Pokemon gave him a half assed nod.

Out of the grass jumped a walking lilypad with a stout blue body hiding underneath it, the little creature squealed when it noticed Nate and Breloom.

"Er um! Us-use uh- force palm!" Breloom was a fighting type right?

to his relief the Pokemon obliged and knocked the creature out in one go, it was stronger than he though, Nate smiled at the thrill of victory.

"What are you doing?" it became obvious now what Brendan met by a good view, the older boy hadn't taken his eyes off him for a heartbeat, "Why didn't you catch that Lotad?"

"I didn't like the way it looked at me," he snootily responded, and kept responding throughout the next half an hour. 'it wanted to see other trainers. I didn't feel the connection. If you wanted it so bad then you should of caught it,' were only a few of the countless excuses he used before Brendan had enough.

The seviper hit the ground a second before Brendan grabbed Brelooms Pokeball and returned him. Nate didn't even notice he had left his tree till it was too late and Brendan had seized his wrists.

"Stop fooling around," it was strange though, he didn't sound mad or anything to that nature, "I mean it's cute and all seeing you enjoy yourself but I really want to see you catch a Pokemon, Mkay?"

Nate blushed and looked at the ground, he was enjoying himself, a lot!

"What are you smiling about?" The trainer hummed as his warm eye's met up with Nate's, they looked accomplished and joyful.

"N-nothing," he pulled his arm's out Brendan's hands, "Don't touch me."

"No," Brendan grimaced in embarrassment after he said that, "N-no, I don't want to stop, I want to touch and touch and touch you!" He playfully grabbed his sides and began to tickle him, that was foul play! Nate gave an outburst of laughter, why was he acting so weird?

"Hahaha! C-Cut it out!" He managed to say between heavy breathes of laughter, suddenly his knee's unbuckled and he fell in the mud with Brendan on top of him.

"You can't make me!" The Hoenn native continued to tickle him, grinning evilly whenever Nate twisted underneath him.

It wasn't like there was anything sexual about this, Nate justified Brendan's actions, it was just playful right? Tickling someone and pinning them on the ground is something you'd do with a kid as well, no this was ok. Then it did get sexual, and the brown eyed boy could tell that the other teen knew he was going too far when his eyes opened wide. Brendan lifted one of Nates legs up and pressed his groin into his, they paused. He was too close for comfort and caused them both to go quiet when they realized that the rest of their body parts weren't even an inch away from each other.

"You're so selfish…" Nate felt his eye's begin to water and almost punched Brendan when the trainer slid one arm around his waist, allowing the mud to coat his arm, and another to guide his face to him.

"I'm sorry. That I'm selfish. I really am."

Brendan's lips pressed into Nate's own pair gently and lovingly, they nibbled at the soft flesh and pulled on them with tender intentions.

Thank goodness he didn't punch him.

The brunette felt his face catch on fire as he moaned at the gesture and allowed the older teen to pull him into his body closer and tighter. He felt something slimy poke at his mouth and opened up only slightly to allow the other teen access to the other areas of his mouth. His tongue was introduced to Brendan's in a playful method which caused him to squeak with excitement, he couldn't wrap his head around on how the elder teen was able to use his tongue and lips at the same time but right now he didn't want to think too much. This was nice, he liked this, and he could tell that Brendan was also enjoying it when his lips began to curl after Nate had wrapped his arms over his shoulder. It was then when he came back to his senses and pulled out of the kiss.

He looked up at Brendan with a hurt look, was he teasing him? "why would you do that?"

"It has occurred to me that I really wanted to kiss you. So you know… I kissed you."

"Y-you know what I meant…" was he going to cry again? He better not.

"Did you know the last person I kissed before just now was Steven?"

"Please don't talk to me about Steven," he buried his head into Brendan's shoulder.

"I told you I was selfish."

"Oh so now this is my fault?! Like I should of known better?"

"No! This isn't your fault- I-I lied to you! I was afraid to let go of Steven, even though I hate him I still didn't want to like anyone else! And- I," Brendan flushed.

"And you what?"

"I was scared to like you, even though I've been completely head over heels for you this entire time I did not, what so ever, want to admit it."

Nate pressed his brows together, that was just mean. "Why?"

He snorted and pressed their foreheads together, "Think about it Nate. You're leaving in two days. How can we have a relationship like that? You'll be all the way over in Unova, surrounded by lots of people, and Hugh not to mention, and I'll be over here, missing you."

"You- like me…" The brunette held onto the white hatted teen tightly as he pulled them into an upright position, he was happy. Very happy, he gave up hope in pursuing Brendan and now his crush was confessing to him.

"Uh, yeah ding dong, we already went over this, we kind of have another issue to worry about" it wasn't said as an insult though, it was however accompanied by a loving kiss to his cheek and a little nuzzling here and there, thank the Pokegods that no one was around to see their PDA.

"No! Don't worry about the distance. We can work it out, just knowing that you like me make's me so happy."

"Are you sure? You won't just stop talking to me one day? Or pick up your things and disappear?"

"I'm not a coward, if I don't want to date you I'll tell you."

Brendan gave him a very happy smile, and loosened his hold on Nate, "want to see something pretty cool?"

"If it's another route I'm going to be mad."  
He laughed, "No it's not another route… kind of."

"Fine," he blushed.

Today, after having a month full of so-so to sometimes shitty, days had finally proven itself to be a good day for once. Brendan was proud of himself for just letting go of Steven and admitting that he liked Nate, it was surprisingly a lot easier to get over him after he did so.

There was a strange satisfaction from earning such a strong reaction out of Nate when the teen got his first look at Meteor Fall's, Brendan puffed out his chest in accomplishment knowing that he was the one who showed him this, he made him happy. The way the brunette's eye's sparkled at the sight just made him want to claim him right there. Luckily he had enough manners to know when to hold back.

The rest of the day played out smoothly, when they had returned to Little Root Brendan took the short teen to May's, even though the brunette was scared or something to go there. May looked like she was going to tell them off but Brendan gave her a stern look and just said 'don't.' it did the trick.

Some of the other trainers had left but a lot of them were still there, no one said anything to their arrival, some gave them awkward looks but that was about the worst they did. But of course there was Ethan who was dumb enough to try to sit between the ruby eyed teen and his lover, the sitting didn't last long, Brendan shoved him of instantly and closed the gap between him and Nate.

When Ethan waddled away the protective trainer quickly whispered into the youngers ear.

"I _Hate _him, don't talk to him anymore."

His round, brown eyes looked back up at him, "What makes you think I want to talk to him!?" He hissed, "He literally just follows me everywhere whenever he gets the chance."

Green's eyes flicked over them and must have mistook Brendan's whisper as something else, "Hey No sex on the couch you two!"

Nate blushed at that and tensed up.

"Shut up Green just let them be!" Hilda came to the rescue.

The Kanto gym leader scoffed and walked the other way, Brendan was pretty certain Green wasn't actually upset by their closeness, he just likes to start shit.

"It just occurred to me…" Nate started to speak, the ruby eyed teen lifted an eyebrow, "that I think I might be gay."

If he had a drink right now he would of spit it out, which reminded him, he should get a drink, but that was beside the point. "Oh no," the Hoenn boy mocked, "What should we do about that?" he ended the question with a quick peck on the lips.

"No! I mean, like, I-I was so concentrated at one point finding out if YOU were gay or not that I didn't even think about my own sexuality."

"Oh geez, you make it sound like a disease,"

"Eh, whatever, maybe I'm lesbian."

"Oh please…"

The two were separated for the rest of the evening, Nate spent time with Rosa, Bianca, and Hilbert, while Brendan was off drinking with May and Lyra. It took a few hours before everyone decided to take off.

The brunette sat outside wondering what Hugh would think if he knew what went down today. He examined the shiny red and white ball in his hand, two Pokemon now, he had two. Ok more like one and half, because Mienshao never came out of his Pokeball.

"How's Swablu?" Brendan sat next to him with a half dazed look.

"Are you drunk?"

"Whoa! No need to accuse me, I don't get drunk. Only a little exciting," he put an arm around him and squeezed.

"Um so… I was wondering," Nate was feeling a little awkward, he felt like he should know this, "are we… boyfriends now?"

"Yeah, we are."

"How are we gonna work this and all?"

The white hatted trainer stared off into the distance for a moment to collect his thoughts, "I can travel, I mean obviously not every week, but there are some benefits in having a dad who's a gym leader."

"Really? You're gonna travel to Unova every now and then just to see me?"

"Nope! You're wrong, I'm going there to go see Hugh."

"Yeah right," he giggled.

"Hey maybe while I'm over there we can go on that giant circle!"

"Uh," Nate frowned, what was he talking about?

"The giant circle, it like spins and people sit on it."

"The Ferris Wheel!" he smiled, for once he knew more about something than Brend- his boyfriend.

"Yes that," The dark haired teen stood up and pulled Nate to his toes, "Now Let's go home and have sex!"

"No-not if you're going to as unromantic as that!"

"Ugh, never mind we can't anyways, parents are home. Or we could try to see how quiet we can be." He socked his shoulder.

Nate couldn't help but feel himself grow warm when Brendan took his hand in gently, not roughly, not to pull him along, gently and firmly just so he could walk side by side with him.

The End

* * *

**A/N: **Congratulations, if you read the whole story up to here then that means you read 72 pages (according to Microsoft word) of a very weird shipping.  
There is something entirely eerie about writing the words, The End. Omg, I feel like I just gave away something really precious to me.

This was a very fluffy ending, but I'm not disappointed in it. Yaaay. Also I just want to thank you reviewers because those were some of the best reviews ever.  
And last but not least, to the guest that was apparently heaving, or so I assume so because that's what you put as your name, You're right. I. Totally. Did. That. To. Tease. You.  
Welp see ya around C:


End file.
